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There was also mass destruction of cities. Basically the very old world was a heavily urbanized place with complex civilizations, huge cities, very modern. Then something happened that destroyed everything. Egypt managed to make it through (though they lost all their territory outside the Nile valley) but everyone else collapsed. There are some letters left from Egyptian rulers sending pleas for help back to the pharaoh, they're very apocalyptic and haunting. Mediterranean civilization spends the next few centuries recovering and doesn't really begin to look like the kind of advanced world they had had before for a thousand years or so.
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Nov 13, 2012 09:42
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I remember my old classics teacher postulating that it was one of the massive volcanic eruptions of the time that caused it, and that it probably served to explain the Atlantis myth as well.
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Nov 13, 2012 09:50
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Grand Fromage posted:There was also mass destruction of cities. Basically the very old world was a heavily urbanized place with complex civilizations, huge cities, very modern. Then something happened that destroyed everything. Egypt managed to make it through (though they lost all their territory outside the Nile valley) but everyone else collapsed. There are some letters left from Egyptian rulers sending pleas for help back to the pharaoh, they're very apocalyptic and haunting. Mediterranean civilization spends the next few centuries recovering and doesn't really begin to look like the kind of advanced world they had had before for a thousand years or so. That's really loving creepy. 
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Nov 13, 2012 11:30
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Saul Goode posted:I remember my old classics teacher postulating that it was one of the massive volcanic eruptions of the time that caused it, and that it probably served to explain the Atlantis myth as well. That's one of the many ideas. There's evidence of a gigantic eruption in Iceland around the mid 1100s BCE that probably cooled the Earth a few degrees, which could've started a huge famine. There are also all kinds of new cultures in Europe after the period, which is some of the evidence (along with the Sea Peoples writings) for invasion. Also, the cities of the time are massively fortified compared to what had been the norm previously, and most of the city sites seem to have been destroyed violently.
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Nov 13, 2012 12:05
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age_collapse It sounds to me that you have bands of raiders that suddenly united under a flag, hit a bunch of civilizations as they were in the middle of internecine warfare, famine and economic depression, collapsing them, before the raiders themselves collapse without leaving any primary sources in the historical record. Is this a decent simplification of the overarching narrative?
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Nov 13, 2012 12:50
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Did you guys see this claim that people were a bunch smarter a couple thousand years ago? It sounds patently ridiculous to me -- for one, we have a lot of information of what people were like back then and none of it demonstrates a higher average level of emotional or intellectual functionality than we see in humanity now. (In fact, humanity now is significantly more peaceful and kind than it ever has been, and has been going in that direction steadily for the entirety of known history.)
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Nov 13, 2012 13:46
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Over interpreted, there's no actual data, and there's no evidence that these proposed mutations aren't selected against. Besides, even if it is true, it's irrelevant. What matters is the gestalt intelligence of the society. No man is an island. What, you think every single hunter gatherer Ubermensch independently developed their own bow? Every single Athenian Citizen researched the Secrets of Bronze Working? Of course not, the learnt it from their parents and peers. A better interpretation is that the hunter gatherer societies might possibly for more individual innovation, but more modern societies (that worked at the city state plus level) selected for social cooperation and information sharing.
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Nov 13, 2012 14:03
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Curious what pushed so many different people out of their land. Is the main strain in theory oriented towards ecological collapse atm?
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Nov 13, 2012 14:17
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I think in Western European culture there's this kind of "fear of the East" that's the result of hostile, migratory cultures pouring off the Asian steppe at random times throughout history. The Cumans, the Turks, the Kipchaks, the Mongols, the Timurids, etc etc. And it's funny because that's mostly all in the medieval period. In Antiquity, it went the other way. Western Europeans, specifically Celts and Germans, had this alarming tendency to get up, arm themselves and start migrating east/southeast. The Sea Peoples might have been something more exotic but I'd put a dollar on them being Europeans doing what Europeans would do periodically for centuries afterwards. InspectorBloor posted:Curious what pushed so many different people out of their land. Is the main strain in theory oriented towards ecological collapse atm? physeter fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Nov 13, 2012 |
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Nov 13, 2012 14:18
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Phobophilia posted:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age_collapse That seems about right, yes. And: DarkCrawler posted:That's really loving creepy. It is really eerie. It feels like fiction - an entire group of relatively-advanced civilizations just falling off the map pretty much because of one bad summer. (That's an exaggeration - the fall probably took several years - but not by much.) It's worth noting, too, that although the modern image of Bronze Age Aegean cultures is of a civilization that's kind of backward and not particularly developed (special thanks to the Enlightenment's hard-on for Classical Greece and Rome), the Mycenaean cities were, as Grand Fromage said, advanced for their time. They were a civilization on par with Egypt: engineers, architects, philosophers, and politicians of the highest order. When the Classical Greeks rediscovered Mycenae, they called the walls "Cyclopean" because they were so large, and the boulders used to build them so massive, that they (perhaps) believed that only the mythical Cyclopes were strong enough to build them. The cistern at Mycenae drew water from a spring several mountains away via a proto-aqueduct. Their tholos ("beehive") tombs are huge and vaulted, and have a fascinating property: internally, they're acoustic mirrors. Someone standing in the center of the room can be heard clearly, even at a whisper, by anyone else in the tomb. Perhaps most astonishing to me: I spoke to an archaeologist at the Palace of Nestor near Pylos, a 13th-century-BCE complex, who was excavating an artificial harbor the Bronze Age residents had cut to bring the sea - which was several kilometers away - closer to the palace, probably to help protect merchants and make transporting goods to the palace easier and faster. Meanwhile, the most obvious evidence of their ability to politick and trade comes from the name of the age itself. Greece has no tin, which is essential for making bronze; that they were able to trade for a prized alloy successfully enough to not live in the Copper Age speaks volumes.  I'll end with this image, which is, to me, the most haunting image in all of antiquity:  That's part of the megaron at the Palace of Nestor; the raised platform is the hearth. It was uncovered in the 20th century after having been buried when the palace fell, and then left alone. It hasn't been restored, retouched, etc. Which means that the houndstooth pattern around the edge of the hearth is the original paint. When you look at that hearth, you're seeing the same paint in the same pattern that the Bronze Age Greeks saw more than 3,000 years ago.
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Nov 13, 2012 14:19
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mad carl posted:Did you guys see this claim that people were a bunch smarter a couple thousand years ago? I would not try to explain the "more peaceful" (measured in people killed by violence, I'm sure most of you have seen that graph) state of many human societies today with genetic development/evolution - that time scale is just too small for significant biological changes. Instead I suppose the development of complex societies and different forms of government has had a much bigger influence. However, I'm generally very vary of every kind of metric used to measure intelligence. Those metrics are very often massively biased - if not consciously, then often on a phenomenological basis (different learned ways to perceive surroundings, forms, coulours, etc.), so they are super problematic to use in a single "homogenic" society. Of course if you extend your scale to other societies and even other eras, those measures become completely useless. Looking at the "study", the scientist gives a real  vibe, with idealizing hunter-gatherer-cultures ("Every survivor had to be a flexible inventor!!!" "Survival of the Smartest!!", etc.) and misinterpreting cognitive and biological developments for his own little decadence narrative:quote:“I would wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions, with a good memory, a broad range of ideas and a clear-sighted view of important issues,” Professor Crabtree says in a provocative paper published in the journal Trends in Genetics. Yes, I'm sure that emotional stability is a metric that can be measured well with genetics and/or phrenology.  Edit: This is so 19th century it hurtssss. I'm not even sure what he means with "emotional stability". Yeah, maybe you can be considered more "stable" if you can continue your life after a negative emotional event - but just because you are too desensitized by the constant death of children, young adults and childbearing women all around you. SavageGentleman fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Nov 13, 2012 |
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Nov 13, 2012 14:24
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physeter posted:I think in Western European culture there's this kind of "fear of the East" that's the result of hostile, migratory cultures pouring off the Asian steppe at random times throughout history. The Cumans, the Turks, the Kipchaks, the Mongols, the Timurids, etc etc. And it's funny because that's mostly all in the medieval period. In Antiquity, it went the other way. Western Europeans, specifically Celts and Germans, had this alarming tendency to get up, arm themselves and start migrating east/southeast. The Steppe was a source of problems in antiquity as well. The Huns, the Parthians, the Scythians, and a few I'm forgetting as well. Until the Romans conquered Gaul you could get invaded from either east or west. China also dealt with steppe nomads constantly.
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Nov 13, 2012 14:26
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SavageGentleman posted:Looking at the "study", the scientist gives a real Yeah, there's no substance in this pronouncement (from a guy who apparently spends his time studying neither anthropology nor brain function but chromatin and protein development in embryos). Never mind that in 1000 BC there wouldn't be an Athens to speak of for another 200-300 years; it sounds to me like he's just trying to stir poo poo. quote:"A hunter-gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food or shelter probably died, along with his or her progeny, whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial bonus and be a more attractive mate," Professor Crabtree says. I'll give him one thing: the average Athenian in 1000 BC probably would have been smart enough to not come up with this stupid theory.
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Nov 13, 2012 14:58
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A very recent podcast which goes into the Trojan War and the Collapse of the Bronze Age. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01j6srl More on topic recent podcasts: Hannibal http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01n6s03 Hadrian's Wall http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01kkr42 Vitruvius and De Architectura http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01d2kzx
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Nov 13, 2012 15:07
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The eerie feeling about the Bronze Age Collapse isn't just you guys. I vaguely resemble professionals in some ways (though not really) and eerie or unsettling is how I feel about it. All these truly great civilizations, thousands of years of development, and it's just... gone. In a very, very short time. With no real record of what happened. And then there's this almost post-apocalyptic period of Mediterranean history for centuries after.
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Nov 13, 2012 15:09
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Grand Fromage posted:The eerie feeling about the Bronze Age Collapse isn't just you guys. I vaguely resemble professionals in some ways (though not really) and eerie or unsettling is how I feel about it. All these truly great civilizations, thousands of years of development, and it's just... gone. In a very, very short time. With no real record of what happened. And then there's this almost post-apocalyptic period of Mediterranean history for centuries after. I just found the plot hook for my new Call of Cthulhu campaign! 
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Nov 13, 2012 15:15
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I find it interesting that sites like Mitrou, Lefkandi and Kynos seemingly show no signs of disturbance (or at least abandonment) during the Bronze Age collapse, despite being located in the centre of Greece. Everything around them was falling apart, but the people there just kept on living there during the transition period. Although they do show signs of changing social structures based on excavated cemeteries and such, so they probably were affected by it all.
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Nov 13, 2012 15:35
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to me the creepiest thing is how the Mycenaean palaces had no defensive perimeter and their cities just sat out in the open pretty much like our cities and houses today. Then you see things change and the settlements that remain feature defensive fortifications and the cities had town walls all of a sudden.
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Nov 13, 2012 16:21
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Now that this is a generic ancient history, I can finally post this chap's videos. I'm not entirely sure how accurate his conclusions are (even with my limited knowledge I can see some errors in them) but he gives some good opinions on ancient weaponry, tactics etc. (a big one is overhand v. underhand use of spears).
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Nov 13, 2012 16:23
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Didn't literacy disappeared from mainland Greece for several centuries? Whatever happened it took reading and writing with it - presumably everyone who knew how died out and things were so bad no one really noticed. I'd like to redo my D&D Dark Sun game as what happened after the apocalypse, but there's so little information about what was happening.
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Nov 13, 2012 16:32
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Grand Fromage posted:The eerie feeling about the Bronze Age Collapse isn't just you guys. I vaguely resemble professionals in some ways (though not really) and eerie or unsettling is how I feel about it. All these truly great civilizations, thousands of years of development, and it's just... gone. In a very, very short time. With no real record of what happened. And then there's this almost post-apocalyptic period of Mediterranean history for centuries after. Huh, I always thought the Bronze Age collapse was pretty straight-forward. Invaders overrun the Myceneans in Greece, then the Linear B civilization in Crete collapses, then the "Sea Peoples" attack Egypt, ending up with the Philistenes showing up in the Levant and beating up the Hitites and the Hebrews. Looks like a fairly standard barbarian invasion with one group knocking the next into attacking their neighbors like a chain-reaction. Comstar posted:Didn't literacy disappeared from mainland Greece for several centuries? Whatever happened it took reading and writing with it - presumably everyone who knew how died out and things were so bad no one really noticed. Yeah, the "Linear B" writing system was used in Greece and Crete prior to the collapse, and then it disapperas for a while, before being replaced by the Phoenician alphabet in 900-800 BC. sullat fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Nov 13, 2012 |
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Nov 13, 2012 16:38
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WoodrowSkillson posted:The Steppe was a source of problems in antiquity as well. The Huns, the Parthians, the Scythians, and a few I'm forgetting as well. Until the Romans conquered Gaul you could get invaded from either east or west. China also dealt with steppe nomads constantly. Thukydides estimates the Skythians to be the greatest military force in the world at his time - if they were ever united. Mind you that the term skythians is a synonym for all kinds of different tribes and people. Studying the history of ancient China, you will find that there were individuals who were actually able to do that. Every few centuries some chanyu would go and let the poo poo fly at everybody around there. The impact of these events would be felt in the west. Think of the migration periods.
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Nov 13, 2012 17:27
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InspectorBloor posted:Thukydides estimates the Skythians to be the greatest military force in the world at his time - if they were ever united. Mind you that the term skythians is a synonym for all kinds of different tribes and people. Studying the history of ancient China, you will find that there were individuals who were actually able to do that. Every few centuries some chanyu would go and let the poo poo fly at everybody around there. The impact of these events would be felt in the west. Think of the migration periods. After the defeat of the Magyars there was really no major migration event into Europe that was considered to be a straight up migration. After that it was straight up invasions, it's an odd change.
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Nov 13, 2012 18:04
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It's a little tempting to blame all societal collapses on nomadic invasions, since after firearms managed to neutralize the effectiveness of horse archers from the steppe it stops happening. Of course, that's probably a gross oversimplification.
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Nov 13, 2012 18:18
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sbaldrick posted:After the defeat of the Magyars there was really no major migration event into Europe that was considered to be a straight up migration. After that it was straight up invasions, it's an odd change. enough room = migration not enough room = invasion ?
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Nov 13, 2012 18:37
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InspectorBloor posted:Thukydides estimates the Skythians to be the greatest military force in the world at his time - if they were ever united. Mind you that the term skythians is a synonym for all kinds of different tribes and people. Studying the history of ancient China, you will find that there were individuals who were actually able to do that. Every few centuries some chanyu would go and let the poo poo fly at everybody around there. The impact of these events would be felt in the west. Think of the migration periods. Even building the Great Wall of China didn't end the invasions of China from the north. The last successful one was the Manchu invasion of 1644 that overthrew the Ming dynasty (although the Manchu had help from Chinese leaders who were tired of the weak government of the time). Basically, "Oh, hell, here come some more nomads from the steppes" is a major theme throughout history.
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Nov 13, 2012 20:40
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General Panic posted:Even building the Great Wall of China didn't end the invasions of China from the north. The last successful one was the Manchu invasion of 1644 that overthrew the Ming dynasty (although the Manchu had help from Chinese leaders who were tired of the weak government of the time). You might find http://www.atarn.org/ interesting (warning! Bowporn). Guys like Adam Karpowicz built quite a number of bows based on archeological finds. Some of them had quite excessive drawweights of +120#. Lower drawweigths were usually attributed to bows used from horseback. The chinese used masses of crossbows against horse archers with variing success. There are numerous advantages versus mounted archers. First, training a crossbowman takes, much like learning to shoot a firearm, just a few weeks, while the art of horse archery is quite a complicated thing to learn that takes years of practice, plus the training to be able to shoot a bow with +80# with accuracy for a prolonged period of time without wrecking your shoulders. Second, there is a limit to the drawweight of what can be used from horseback in a meaningful way and with that, armorpiercing capabilities and accuracy. It's no secret what crossbows can do, and the models without windlasses could be fired quite rapidly. Historical chinese texts speak of a maximum of 90 pounds in their training regimen for mounted archers. Modern enthusiasts find this cap at around 60#. Third, man and horse make a pretty big target, it is said that horsearchers would dismount and shoot in the sitting position when confronted with masses of bows. Horsearchers were still in use in the 19th century, the ottoman empire still had bowyers in Instanbul supply for their crimean tartar forces. Horsearchers alone would not win a war so easily (combined with heavy cavalry it was a gamechanger as you know), but they'd ruin everyone's day pillaging, looting, killing farmers or driving them off as slaves. It's a reoccuring theme that it was cheaper to buy these fuckers off than to build an army to fight them, since as long as they remained nomads, all you could do is drive them off for now. Or you could buy their neighbours to fight them. Maybe clicking the link above will infect some of you with the virus called "I want to build a hornbow". It sure did that for me. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Nov 13, 2012 |
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Nov 13, 2012 21:14
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Quick query. Anyone know a lot about Mania of Dardanos? She pops up for a few pages in Xenophon, and I was wondering if anyone knew of any corroboration contemporary sources (long shot, I know), or any good secondary interpretations floating around. I have access to JSTOR, if need be.
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Nov 13, 2012 21:22
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Comstar posted:Didn't literacy disappeared from mainland Greece for several centuries? Whatever happened it took reading and writing with it - presumably everyone who knew how died out and things were so bad no one really noticed. Bear in mind that very few people (probably) knew how to read and write before it; mostly scribes/administrators working for the big palaces, which were large enough organisations to need written records. The texts we have from those times are mostly things like 'Delivered to the palace today, 20 vats of wine, 30 bushels of wheat'. The palaces destroyed, noone really had a reason to read and write any more.
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Nov 13, 2012 21:23
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InspectorBloor posted:You might find http://www.atarn.org/ interesting (warning! Bowporn). Guys like Adam Karpowicz built quite a number of bows based on archeological finds. Some of them had quite excessive drawweights of +120#. Lower drawweigths were usually attributed to bows used from horseback. Hmmm, I guess that makes more sense than horse archers being some kind of overwhelming force of war that it usually gets treated with on this board (and by me sometimes). Horse archers are expensive. And while they're good at raiding, in order to work effectively in pitched battles, you need good leadership and coordination. Also, since the conversation has moved towards crossbows, just where did the killing power of Chu-ko-nus come from? The darts they shot weren't that large, and don't even look like they'd pierce leather. I guess they're good for laying covering fire. I've also heard that they were tipped with a deadly paralytic poison. If so, what were the details, where did it come from, and if this kind of potent poison was so cheap, why wasn't it used more often in warfare?
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Nov 13, 2012 21:41
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sbaldrick posted:After the defeat of the Magyars there was really no major migration event into Europe that was considered to be a straight up migration. After that it was straight up invasions, it's an odd change.
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Nov 13, 2012 21:51
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Phobophilia posted:Hmmm, I guess that makes more sense than horse archers being some kind of overwhelming force of war that it usually gets treated with on this board (and by me sometimes). Horse archers are expensive. And while they're good at raiding, in order to work effectively in pitched battles, you need good leadership and coordination. Oh, they were that unstoppable force for quite some time. You can hide in your castle or city for some time, but once your fields get burned and your peasants killed or hauled off, you won't last for long. Also, apparently nobody realized that they fell over and over for the same trick of chasing the fleeing horsemen and suddenly ending up in an ambush and then the infantry gets the shits and starts to run. As for the size of bolts and arrows, there are different solutions for the same problem, which is mirrored in modern firearm calibres. Either a heavy but slower projectile, or a lighter, faster one. For example ottoman bows (by the most considered the apex of that craft) were relatively small with a very strong reflex. They used a short, light and barreled arrow with small diameter. These arrows were very fast and could be shot over long distances. Karpowicz (2008, p.41) gives the average drawweight of late ottoman warbows of about 120 pounds. Manchu and Mongol bows used long, heavy arrows. The Manchu bows had very long drawlengths. The principle is the same for crossbows, light and fast bolts or heavier slower ones. My knowledge on crossbows is limited, but i can recall that a practical triggermechanism was one of the main problems. The chinese solved that problem early on and mass-produced most parts. Crossbows also enable the use of much higher drawweights, therefore more range and power. Modern bowhunting regulations in the US and CN require drawweights of 60# if i can recall that right. So that's enough to kill quite fast with the right tip. You can do alot more with a crossbow. The late roman military adoped the asian composite bow, as they did with any other weapon that proved superior. There is a distinct problem with this weapon though: ancient glues, namely hideglue or fishbladder glue isn't watertight. The bows would fall apart without covering them with a layer of birchbark or thin leather. Some rain isn't a problem, but once you have longer humid periods, you'll now own an interesting backscraper that took 1 year to build instead of a bow As for arrows and bolts, you can judge by the tip what they were used for. Bodkins weren't meant to kill outright (ofc you won't have a good day if hit in the head or throat), but to pierce armor and to disable. Somebody would later come by and smash your head in to cut your throat. I really don't know about poisons. Probably the average footsoldier was more likely to poison himself than the enemy. It is said that the skythians poisoned their arrows by sticking them in rotten meat, but then alot of other things are said about the skythians. Namely the use of explosive, heatseeking arrows and the use of jetpacks. I like the part about "drinking skythian", the hemp-inhaling tents Herodot describes and the psychedelic pyjamas. These guys had class. e: more of all Power Khan fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Nov 13, 2012 |
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Nov 13, 2012 22:33
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Do we have much on how glamorous the lives of the hetaerae of ancient Athens really were? It's really cool that they were expected to be educated, especially in a culture that attached women to the household, and it's incredible that one of them had so much pull that Perikles dropped his wife for her (and she apparently helped write his speeches? that was my professor's claim), but I can't imagine the average hetaera had that great of a life.
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Nov 13, 2012 22:43
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Phobophilia posted:Hmmm, I guess that makes more sense than horse archers being some kind of overwhelming force of war that it usually gets treated with on this board (and by me sometimes). Horse archers are expensive. And while they're good at raiding, in order to work effectively in pitched battles, you need good leadership and coordination. They also require a certain lifestyle. When the Mongols settled in conquered lands, those skills were gone in ~2 generations. You need people living on a huge grassland riding and shooting their whole lives to field a horse archer army. Its hard to keep that up when life is 100x better living somewhere more hospitable. its like a twilight zone episode where a mongol khan falls asleep in a sacked city and wakes up trying to defend it from those drat horse nomads.
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Nov 13, 2012 22:47
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Horse archers weren't really all that overwhelming on their own. The great conquering hordes were marked by effective leadership and organization. Think of any settled civilization bordering the steppe, and you'll have a state that can beat a regular group of steppe nomads. People like Genghis and Timur had to change up the game and make serious reforms to make their empires, it wasn't a matter of just calling up more steppe homies than usual. I mean, the Romans did it constantly with Parthia and the Sassanids. I think they did the Chinese thing where they suited up auxilia in armour and traded volleys of arrows. Phillip of Macedon took out a Scythian king, as did Alexander. And I can only imagine how many times the Persians would have had to drive away a big group of them as well. Slim Jim Pickens fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Nov 14, 2012 |
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Nov 14, 2012 00:50
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ScottP posted:Do we have much on how glamorous the lives of the hetaerae of ancient Athens really were? It's really cool that they were expected to be educated, especially in a culture that attached women to the household, and it's incredible that one of them had so much pull that Perikles dropped his wife for her (and she apparently helped write his speeches? that was my professor's claim), but I can't imagine the average hetaera had that great of a life. The short answer is no, not really. We have some ancient authors' views of them (Lucian's Dialogues of the Courtesans, some letters by Alciphron, bits here and there by Plutarch, etc.), but we have nothing that a hetaira herself wrote. Probably the closest thing to a glimpse of what citizens might have thought about a hetaira is a speech by Demosthenes, Against Neaera, which is a speech given by a prosecutor. (Naturally, ancient court proceedings weren't necessarily about the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but it's an example of an argument crafted to convince a jury - so likely a lot of details in it are meant to play on the prejudices and beliefs of the average Athenian.)
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Nov 14, 2012 01:00
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Tao Jones posted:The short answer is no, not really. We have some ancient authors' views of them (Lucian's Dialogues of the Courtesans, some letters by Alciphron, bits here and there by Plutarch, etc.), but we have nothing that a hetaira herself wrote. Probably the closest thing to a glimpse of what citizens might have thought about a hetaira is a speech by Demosthenes, Against Neaera, which is a speech given by a prosecutor. (Naturally, ancient court proceedings weren't necessarily about the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but it's an example of an argument crafted to convince a jury - so likely a lot of details in it are meant to play on the prejudices and beliefs of the average Athenian.) There was an anecdote about a hetaira that was being tried in Athens for blasphemy; the defense attorney had her strip down in court with the argument that someone so good lookin' was so favored by the gods that they couldn't possibly be guilty.
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Nov 14, 2012 02:05
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Grand Fromage posted:There are some letters left from Egyptian rulers sending pleas for help back to the pharaoh, they're very apocalyptic and haunting. Do you or anyone else happen know of any online links for any of them?
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Nov 14, 2012 03:21
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Amused to Death posted:
"The last Bronze Age king of the Semitic state of Ugarit, Ammurapi, was a contemporary of the Hittite king Suppiluliuma II. The exact dates of his reign are unknown. However, a letter by the king is preserved on one of the clay tablets found baked in the conflagration of the destruction of the city. Ammurapi stresses the seriousness of the crisis faced by many Levantine states from invasion by the advancing Sea Peoples in a dramatic response to a plea for assistance from the king of Alasiya. Ammurapi highlights the desperate situation Ugarit faced in letter RS 18.147: My father, behold, the enemy's ships came (here); my cities(?) were burned, and they did evil things in my country. Does not my father know that all my troops and chariots(?) are in the Land of Hatti, and all my ships are in the Land of Lukka(?)...Thus, the country is abandoned to itself. May my father know it: the seven ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much damage upon us. Unfortunately for Ugarit, no help arrived and Ugarit was burned to the ground at the end of the Bronze Age. Its destruction levels contained Late Helladic IIIB ware, but no LH IIIC (see Mycenaean period)."
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Nov 14, 2012 03:28
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| # ? May 13, 2024 10:40 |
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Well now, that is a bit creepy. It just keeps on going down the rabbit hole, mystery collapse compounded by the mysterious Sea Peoples no one can quite identify.
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Nov 14, 2012 03:55
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