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Install Gentoo posted:There were people up to modern times whose jobs were to wander the streets and towns going through garbage and attempting to repair or reuse broken things. Some of them also specialized in hitting up random people's houses and offering to repair things they hadn't yet thrown out. Same kind of people in lots of modern cities in Asia still.
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Jul 16, 2013 02:39
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karl fungus posted:How were Romans with garbage? Like, did they just make giant garbage dumps? Did they have a basic concept of recycling? I would imagine you could at least melt down old, unused tools or use discarded clothing to patch up other garments. There is a hill in Rome made entirely of old amphorae. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Testaccio I went to look at it when I was there, not much to see.
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Jul 16, 2013 02:51
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quote:[the Monte Testaccio] stands a short distance away from the east bank of the River Tiber, near the Horrea Galbae where the state-controlled reserve of olive oil was stored in the late 2nd century AD. Ah the Strategic
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Jul 16, 2013 03:39
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Amphorae always weird me out, to my eye, they look like a horrible shape for optimal packaging. But I guess the point is that they're so solid and durable for sealing valuable goods, and also so cheap thanks to a massive cottage industry of potters churning out hundreds of the thing per day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1RvYQJneRE Here's a video I found of that subject.
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Jul 16, 2013 05:13
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This thread is extremely long, so I apologize if it's been asked but can anyone recommend good books on the subject of Babylon, Sumeria, and other very early civilizations. Basically I'd like some that go over the day to day life of people in the beginnings of civilization right as man started to move into cities with the spread of organized agriculture. Ideally it would involve the political systems, daily realities of life, and religious aspects. However, if there's not a lot recorded about that time I'll take anything. As for the type of book, the dryer and complicated the better, but if there's a super entertaining casual one that'd work too.
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Jul 16, 2013 07:04
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There probably wasn't nearly as much garbage per household as there is now. Food remains, broken pottery and small things like that. Sure it still adds up if the entirety of Rome does it but without rubbers and plastics and disposable income to replace things instead of trying to fix or repurpose them the amount of garbage basically plummets.
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Jul 16, 2013 10:47
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MegaGatts posted:This thread is extremely long, so I apologize if it's been asked but can anyone recommend good books on the subject of Babylon, Sumeria, and other very early civilizations. Basically I'd like some that go over the day to day life of people in the beginnings of civilization right as man started to move into cities with the spread of organized agriculture. Ideally it would involve the political systems, daily realities of life, and religious aspects. However, if there's not a lot recorded about that time I'll take anything. As for the type of book, the dryer and complicated the better, but if there's a super entertaining casual one that'd work too. This book by Samuel Kramer covering ancient Sumer seems to be pretty well received and has been on my reading list for a while. Georges Roux's work on ancient Iraq is longer and covers Akkadian and Babylonian developments as well. Reviews suggest that the latter is also a bit more academic, although it is more dated. I haven't read either, nor do I have an academic background in this field, so I'm sure there are plenty of other stronger and more specialized pieces. That said, these look pretty promising.
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Jul 16, 2013 12:04
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From Wikipedia:quote:Herodotus writes in The Histories that, to discourage intercourse with a corpse, ancient Egyptians left deceased beautiful women to decay for "three or four days" before giving them to the embalmers.  Was that seriously a problem back then? Or was this likely just made up?
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Jul 16, 2013 16:04
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It's Herodotus. I mean it sounds like a joke.
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Jul 16, 2013 16:06
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In my opinion, just made up. "Foreigners do weird and debasing things with their women, unlike us Hellenes" is one of Herodotus' go-to smears.
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Jul 16, 2013 16:08
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Herodotus also tells us that the Persians had access to large furry ants from India that dug up gold dust when they made their tunnels, which the locals would collect. Actually, as silly as that story sounds, I was reading somewhere that he might have been referring to a type of marmot/ground hog (which somehow became "furry ants") that digs underground tunnels in a region of India or Pakistan that has quite a bit of gold dust, and that people in that area really did collect it from their tunnels. I don't remember where I read that, so it could be completely a figment of my imagination. I swear it's not though!
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Jul 16, 2013 16:35
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canuckanese posted:Herodotus also tells us that the Persians had access to large furry ants from India that dug up gold dust when they made their tunnels, which the locals would collect. Yea it was likely a translation confusion. Much of Herodotus' weird poo poo has been at least partially vindicated. Anyway, do you lot think no one ever fucks corpses nowadays? I don't see what's so fabulous about that quote.
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Jul 16, 2013 16:39
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I guess it's jarring because you don't hear about ancient people and their paraphilias. On that note, were there any other weird sexual activities engaged in by ancient cultures that would be viewed as strange even in their own contexts? I highly doubt that paraphilias are a modern thing, although maybe our conception of them is.
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Jul 16, 2013 16:48
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Guys it really just sounds like a joke. Remember he was performing the this stuff in front of audiences live.
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Jul 16, 2013 16:54
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euphronius posted:Guys it really just sounds like a joke. Remember he was performing the this stuff in front of audiences live. There must be a lot of dick jokes in there now lost to history due to a lack of context.
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Jul 16, 2013 16:57
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Is it true that Greeks fetishized the neck? Like, long-necked lady was considered the epitome of beauty or something? What about the Romans or the pre-Ptolemaic Egyptians? Or any other old culture for which we have records? What did ancient pervs get off on?
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Jul 16, 2013 17:09
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How did ancient cities deal with animal poo poo on the streets? Surely they wouldn't want it to just stay there and stink up the place.
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Jul 16, 2013 18:01
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How much ancient history is currently unavailable or unknown to English / American academia due to it not being in English? I.e. Archaeology / research carried out by the Soviet Union in Turkey, the Middle East, etc. and still untranslated. Approximations are fine! Asking because I remember earlier in the thread somebody mentioned how we don't have access to portions of Chinese research due to it not yet having been translated to English.
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Jul 16, 2013 18:26
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Litmus Test posted:How much ancient history is currently unavailable or unknown to English / American academia due to it not being in English? I.e. Archaeology / research carried out by the Soviet Union in Turkey, the Middle East, etc. and still untranslated. Approximations are fine! Well we know lots of the general ancient history as that always filters out, however large parts of Soviet work has never been translated so we miss a lot of details on stuff like Central Asian civilizations.
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Jul 16, 2013 18:53
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SlothfulCobra posted:How did ancient cities deal with animal poo poo on the streets? Surely they wouldn't want it to just stay there and stink up the place. People collected it and used it for various purposes, mostly fertilizer. It was still pretty bad in cities though. Animals stomping on poop and hard roads would lead to a mist of fecal matter on dry days, which would then be blown around and inhaled and cause all sorts of problems.
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Jul 16, 2013 19:02
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canuckanese posted:Herodotus also tells us that the Persians had access to large furry ants from India that dug up gold dust when they made their tunnels, which the locals would collect. I don't know about gold but you'd be surprised about what animals can dig up. Here's an example from the book Bone Wars, which profiles early paleontologists working in Wyoming: John Bell Hatcher posted:In such places the ant hills, which in this region are quite numerous, should be carefully inspected as they will almost always yield a goodly number of mammal teeth. It is well to be provided with a small flour sifter with which to sift the sand contained in these ant hills, thus freeing it of the finer materials and subjecting the courser material remaining in the sieve to a thorough inspection for mammals. By this method the writer has frequently secured from 200 to 300 teeth and jaws from one ant hill. In localities where these ants have not yet established themselves, but where mammals are found to be fairly abundant it is well to bring a few shovels full of sand with ants from other ant hills which are sure to be found in the vicinity, and plant them on the mammal locality. They will at once establish new colonies and if visited in succeeding years, will be found to have done efficient service in collecting mammal teeth and other small fossils Now I've never personally found anything in an anthill, but I have found lots of fossils in the loose earth around a groundhog hill. Seems plausible there might be other things to unearth at the right burrow
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Jul 16, 2013 19:26
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I don't mean any offense, but it seems a little strange to me to study the history of a region without knowing the language. Is this just a normal thing?
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Jul 16, 2013 19:40
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Squalid posted:I don't know about gold but you'd be surprised about what animals can dig up. Here's an example from the book Bone Wars, which profiles early paleontologists working in Wyoming: Neat. I've never really dug around an ant hill but now I kind of want to try. I actually found a good explanation for the Herodotus story I was referring to on Wikipedia: quote:One of the most recent developments in Herodotus scholarship was made by the French ethnologist Michel Peissel. On his journeys to India and Pakistan, Peissel claims to have discovered an animal species that may finally illuminate one of the most bizarre passages in Herodotus's Histories. In Book 3, passages 102 to 105, Herodotus reports that a species of fox-sized, furry "ants" lives in one of the far eastern, Indian provinces of the Persian Empire. This region, he reports, is a sandy desert, and the sand there contains a wealth of fine gold dust. These giant ants, according to Herodotus, would often unearth the gold dust when digging their mounds and tunnels, and the people living in this province would then collect the precious dust. Now, Peissel says that in an isolated region of northern Pakistan, on the Deosai Plateau in Gilgit–Baltistan province, there exists a species of marmot, (the Himalayan marmot), (a type of burrowing squirrel) that may have been what Herodotus called giant "ants". Much like the province that Herodotus describes, the ground of the Deosai Plateau is rich in gold dust. According to Peissel, he interviewed the Minaro tribal people who live in the Deosai Plateau, and they have confirmed that they have, for generations, been collecting the gold dust that the marmots bring to the surface when they are digging their underground burrows. The story seems to have been widespread in the ancient world, because later authors like Pliny the Elder mentioned it in his gold mining section of the Naturalis Historia.
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Jul 16, 2013 19:41
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quote:"Alright Peissel, you have ten seconds to pitch this book idea of yours to me."
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Jul 16, 2013 20:25
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Why did they bother retaining a senate for so long during the empire? They even kept it in the east after the fall of the west. In fact, even the barbarians kept it in the west after the fall of the west.
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Jul 17, 2013 00:21
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karl fungus posted:Why did they bother retaining a senate for so long during the empire? They even kept it in the east after the fall of the west. In fact, even the barbarians kept it in the west after the fall of the west. Well Senator was also something of a separate class in society, aside from the whole nominal legislature thing. On top of that they retained various levels of authority over minor legislation, as well as jurisdiction to handle certain kinds of lawsuits and criminal cases.
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Jul 17, 2013 00:32
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It also helped draw political legitimacy from Rome's origins. The most terrible emperors usually set out to humiliate the Senate. Even if senates did not hold much real power it was a pleasant formality. Even as the emperorship became more withdrawn such as with Diocletian and Constantine they ignored the senate's daily functions rather than impede them.
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Jul 17, 2013 00:45
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Phobophilia posted:Amphorae always weird me out, to my eye, they look like a horrible shape for optimal packaging. But I guess the point is that they're so solid and durable for sealing valuable goods, and also so cheap thanks to a massive cottage industry of potters churning out hundreds of the thing per day. If I recall from some documentary, one of the reasons they had that vaguely arrowheaded shape was that between that and the relative uniformity of shape, they could be packed into holds in a sort of interlocking pattern to increase the haul and keep the cargo stable. I imagine the pointy bottom made it easier to plant into whatever Romans used as packing peanuts. I'd love to have someone come across a sealed amphora filled with something like 1700-year old wine or olive oil or (as long as I'm not anywhere nearby) garum.
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Jul 17, 2013 00:49
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The Entire Universe posted:I'd love to have someone come across a sealed amphora filled with something like 1700-year old wine or olive oil or (as long as I'm not anywhere nearby) garum. Pretty sure this has happened a few times.
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Jul 17, 2013 01:35
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:People collected it and used it for various purposes, mostly fertilizer. Unfortunately this is not a phenomenon of the past - pulverized fecal matter is a contributor to the terrible air in Kabul and, I'm sure, other dry developing cities.
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Jul 17, 2013 01:37
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I have a dumb question. So, we now know that all those ancient statues and pillars and columns used to be painted and decorated on every square inch. Did the East continue to paint everything? And if so how did all of Europe 'forget' something that was so relatively recent? Also, do you think Europe and America would have so willing to imitate garishly colored pediments if they had known?
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Jul 17, 2013 01:45
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The Entire Universe posted:I'd love to have someone come across a sealed amphora filled with something like 1700-year old wine or olive oil or (as long as I'm not anywhere nearby) garum. Yeah, this definitely happens. There was a sealed cask of some sort of alcohol pulled out of the Baltic within the last year or two. Not Rome old, but still pretty damned old.
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Jul 17, 2013 02:46
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The Baroness posted:I have a dumb question. So, we now know that all those ancient statues and pillars and columns used to be painted and decorated on every square inch. Did the East continue to paint everything? And if so how did all of Europe 'forget' something that was so relatively recent? Also, do you think Europe and America would have so willing to imitate garishly colored pediments if they had known? I don't know for certain whether Eastern buildings were commonly painted -- I would assume so, but I don't know that period so well. When the Hagia Sophia was restored in the 19th century, the architects in charge of it had the exterior painted, which leads me to believe that they thought it originally was. If you look at photos of that building now, you can see that much of the red paint has faded considerably, and that's in a relatively short period of time. As for how Europe might have forgotten - after 1453, much of what had been Eastern Rome was in the hands of the Ottoman Turks. Other than diplomats and the occasional adventurer, there wasn't much contact until the advent of tourism. In terms of imitation -- well, I think that's a philosophical question. Is the beauty of a building informed by its context? If so, then I think our impression of what architectural beauty is would be different if the paint had survived and we'd imitated brightly painted buildings. (Maybe some avant-garde artist would make a model of the Parthenon stripped of all of its vivid color and left as bare white stone and it would be shocking and offensive in how stark and lifeless it looked to alternate-universe us.) edit: Though that's not to assume that everyone is drawn to the appeal of neoclassical buildings. I grew up in DC and think the neoclassical buildings there all look like tombs. fantastic in plastic fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Jul 17, 2013 |
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Jul 17, 2013 03:10
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karl fungus posted:Why did they bother retaining a senate for so long during the empire? They even kept it in the east after the fall of the west. In fact, even the barbarians kept it in the west after the fall of the west. The Senate was functionally powerless as a body, but senators were not individually powerless nor was it taken 100% for granted that the Senate would never have influence in the future. It served as an upper class diversion, which combined with the symbolic importance of the institution allowed it to continue to exist. Diocletian effectively neutered it completely, but the "upper class diversion" aspect never went away. By the end it was just basically a rich man's networking club and membership just an affirmation that you or your dad or whoever was totally hot poo poo. It served as the governing body of Rome itself for a short period during the Gothic kingdom and had some political power as it still represented the wealthy Romans who hadn't left. With all that said, it basically survived because you're never going to get rid of organizations that represent the wealthy without a lot of expense and trouble that generally wasn't worth it compared to letting them pretend to have influence.
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Jul 17, 2013 03:40
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Rockopolis posted:I don't mean any offense, but it seems a little strange to me to study the history of a region without knowing the language. Is this just a normal thing? It's normal. You can't learn every language. Typically an archaeologist will learn the language of their field of specialty, but no civilization exists in a vacuum and there are too many languages. If I were working in the field properly I'd have learned Latin and Greek, but would have to be relying on translations of Egyptian, Persian, Chinese, various Indian languages, etc for that Roman-related material.
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Jul 17, 2013 03:41
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I lived in DC for a few years and I always liked the neoclassical architecture there though it's pretty amusing to think of it all painted up like in Antiquity. Anyway, did any of the Republican era patrician families last well into the Imperial era?
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Jul 17, 2013 06:03
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At least some of the Decia made it through at least into the 6th Century, with one raising as high as to become the Emperor Decius in 249.
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Jul 17, 2013 06:16
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PittTheElder posted:Yeah, this definitely happens. There was a sealed cask of some sort of alcohol pulled out of the Baltic within the last year or two. Not Rome old, but still pretty damned old. That was early 19th century champagne, if we are talking about the same thing. drat valuable, and perfectly drinkable apparently. http://www.visitaland.com/en/facts/champagne
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Jul 17, 2013 07:25
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The Baroness posted:I have a dumb question. So, we now know that all those ancient statues and pillars and columns used to be painted and decorated on every square inch. Did the East continue to paint everything? And if so how did all of Europe 'forget' something that was so relatively recent? With almost no historical knowledge to back me up on this, I'd wager that it has a lot to do with technology. We know that they painted statues because of microscopic flecks of paint etc., but this technology wasn't available until very recently. You're also dealing with people with no photography either (obviously), so there's absolutely no way you could look at an unpainted statue and say "yes this was once bright red/yellow/whatever". In addition, the people that were around when the statues were painted are long gone, and any anecdotal stories of paint, if they even existed in the first place, are hundreds of years old. So for a Renaissance painter, for example, you look at an ancient Roman statue in all it's marble glory, and you have to assume that it was always like this, because you have no evidence otherwise.
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Jul 17, 2013 13:21
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Grand Fromage posted:I don't know much about the late army either, unfortunately. The spatha became more common than the gladius but I'm not sure about spears. I would guess a few reasons. One, spears are actually pretty good weapons--we're kind of conditioned to think of them as primitive from video games, but they're not bad, especially in groups. Two, they're good against cavalry and the Roman army gradually is dealing with a lot more cavalry forces. Three, they're cheap to manufacture and the later empire, particularly in the west, doesn't have the resources anymore to maintain the kind of manufacturing base it did during the golden age.
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Jul 17, 2013 14:31
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