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Not true for everyone. The Visigothic Kingdom in Spain was as Roman as it got, and maintained the most "pure" Roman culture and tradition in western Europe until the Muslims came. For the most part the tribes that came while the empire was still going Romanized, to a greater or lesser extent, and it was the ones that came after those, like the Franks, which created the Roman-German fusion culture that begins the Middle Ages.
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Jul 24, 2013 03:31
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I'd say the Saxons are the exceptions to the above, however. They well and truly pushed Roman Britain's poo poo in, at least if you follow the line of thought that suggests the collapse of Roman society alleged to have happened in the late fourth century (collapse of trade, abandonment of towns) didn't actually happen the way some claim.
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Jul 24, 2013 04:29
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Britain is always an exception for some reason. Weird island.
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Jul 24, 2013 04:32
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What was the most likely thing that happened in the poorly recorded period between Romans leaving and Anglo-Saxons invading? Also, what was Roman Britain like in general? What were the big cities and did any interesting individuals come out of it?
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Jul 24, 2013 04:39
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Grand Fromage posted:Britain is always an exception for some reason. Weird island. Seriously, yeah. karl fungus posted:What was the most likely thing that happened in the poorly recorded period between Romans leaving and Anglo-Saxons invading? We really don't know apart from the broadest outlines. Despite some archeologists claiming that whole Saxon invasion thing was a myth made up later because  DARK AGES NATIONALISM AND DYNASTIC MYTH-MAKING it's pretty clear that Britain was cut off from the rest of the empire by the massive migrations across the Rhine in 406/407 and turned to the local civil bureaucrats who hadn't left to fight over Gaul with Constantine III. What happens after that is as best murky but basically at some point during the fifth century the Saxons start taking over eastern England. We don't know how the Saxons got there (foreign invaders, pirates, disgruntled foederati detachments, all of the above?), how many there were (was it a mass migration, or did a few of them just kick out the local Romano-British leaders?), of even if they were strictly Saxons at all (Bede famously described them as being Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, but that's questionable to say the least), but we can be pretty sure it wasn't a fun time to be a native Briton.
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Jul 24, 2013 04:52
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Grand Fromage posted:Not true for everyone. The Visigothic Kingdom in Spain was as Roman as it got, and maintained the most "pure" Roman culture and tradition in western Europe until the Muslims came. 
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Jul 24, 2013 05:45
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Many Welsh noble houses continued to claim their authority originated from the last Roman commanders in Britain right up until the English conquest. Whether their claims were actually grounded in a historical devolution of power to native leaders is uncertain, but certainly plausible.
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Jul 24, 2013 06:46
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Squalid posted:Many Welsh noble houses continued to claim their authority originated from the last Roman commanders in Britain right up until the English conquest. Whether their claims were actually grounded in a historical devolution of power to native leaders is uncertain, but certainly plausible. Yeah, that sort of thing is definitely plausible, but the problem is that because of the utter lack of contemporary historical sources (for the two hundred years of British history post-400 AD we have something like three primary accounts) nothing can be confirmed with any definitiveness.
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Jul 24, 2013 06:53
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I've always thought that there would be an interesting (if not very plausible) story in a Britain that doesn't get invaded by the Saxons but instead becomes the last remnant of the western Empire.
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Jul 24, 2013 08:45
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WHAT A GOOD DOG posted:Matrilineal societies are not unheard of but are certainly not the norm. They tend to prevail in smaller cultures and island tribes and stuff. Typically, however, men do the farming and the fighting and the hunting, all things that are considered sacred and honorable duties in some cultures and lovely dirty duties in others. It's all relative. smaller cultures like Egypt? England? France? HRE principalities? Spain? Portugal? Russia? And the rest of Europe... Most of the Asian monarchies too? The next King is the eldest son of the Queen, not the Eldest son of the King. The Queens child almost always is higher in the succession order than kings illegitimate children are, even when the illegitimate one is older. Matrilineal patriarchies have been the standard for most of recorded history. Captain Postal fucked around with this message at 09:07 on Jul 24, 2013 |
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Jul 24, 2013 09:04
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Captain Postal posted:smaller cultures like Egypt? England? France? HRE principalities? Spain? Portugal? Russia? And the rest of Europe... Most of the Asian monarchies too? This is a pretty radical interpretation of 'matrilineal'. The heir was the oldest legitimate son of the king. Not the oldest legitimate son of the queen. It just happens that legitimate in this context means 'child of the royal couple'.
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Jul 24, 2013 11:36
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Captain Postal posted:smaller cultures like Egypt? England? France? HRE principalities? Spain? Portugal? Russia? And the rest of Europe... Most of the Asian monarchies too? To be accurate here you'd have to compare the queen's illegitimate children to the king's.
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Jul 24, 2013 11:41
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Captain Postal posted:
If that was the case the child would belong to the mother's family but that's not how European dynasties work, even in the UK. The British royal baby for example belongs to the house of Windsor, no one will call him (X) Middleton.
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Jul 24, 2013 12:00
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Captain Postal posted:Matrilineal patriarchies have been the standard for most of recorded history. I'm pretty sure he meant to say matriarchal there. There is a decent amount of evidence that the first civilizations in the Mediterranean/Middle East were matriarchal, though. Or at the least, the sexes were considered equal. Ofaloaf posted:Vandals, Alemanni, Suebi? I did say for the most part for a reason.
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Jul 24, 2013 12:48
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Obdicut posted:To be accurate here you'd have to compare the queen's illegitimate children to the king's. In a patriarchal society, regardless of if it is matrilineal or patrilineal, it's usually treason for the Queen to have illegitimate children. Also, if you knock-up the kings missus, it won't end well for you. I believe Egypt was an extreme case where lineage was actually traced through the Queen, rather than it being implied that the Queen didn't have illegitimate children. The only way to ensure that all royal children were of the kings blood was to make sure the queen was too, hence so many brother/sister and uncle/niece arrangements. I don't know how this worked before the Ptolemies. There can be doubt about paternity, but maternity is fairly certain. Grand Fromage posted:I'm pretty sure he meant to say matriarchal there. There is a decent amount of evidence that the first civilizations in the Mediterranean/Middle East were matriarchal, though. Or at the least, the sexes were considered equal. Yeah, but I thought I should chip in anyway. I had always thought matriarchal was limited to episodes of Xena and other bad tv shows, along with myths and legends. Which civilizations are you referring to? Were they "equal but different" or actually equal? Captain Postal fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Jul 24, 2013 |
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Jul 24, 2013 13:02
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Captain Postal posted:In a patriarchal society, regardless of if it is matrilineal or patrilineal, it's usually treason for the Queen to have illegitimate children. Yeah, that was pretty much my point. I think you're confusing 'matrilineal' with 'only women can give birth'.
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Jul 24, 2013 13:08
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The problem is this is way before writing so we don't really know, I'm not sure there are even names for the cultures. Or they're like "Weird looking pot culture". What it comes from is that the oldest temples we find seem to be dedicated to a female goddess, which appears to be the ancestor of Hera. In this religion, she was the chief deity. Generally (always?) societies with gendered deities have the leader of these divines as the same gender as the chief gender in the society. That is flimsy evidence, but there is other stuff that I don't know because it's way outside my field. I've only read general references to it. It's also believed the Amazon legends were based in an actual matriarchal society of some sort that passed into myth. Also please notice all of the conditional words in there. We have very little from civilizations so ancient and zero writing, so it's very difficult to piece anything together. If anyone here is balls deep in the Neolithic maybe they can help, I just don't know.
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Jul 24, 2013 13:08
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Are there any examples of techniques/technologies that were 'better' in ancient times, and subsequently forgotten? For example I read that some ancient navigators (who when and where I do not know) had a better technique that has since been lost to the ages. Or the old Roman napalm, which I've always imagined is green fire for some reason.
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Jul 24, 2013 14:32
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I doubt anyone could build a great pyramid today using the tools used then.
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Jul 24, 2013 14:42
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Captain Postal posted:
The closest I know to solid evidence in that region is a bunch of Persian tablets (so, hardly 'ancient' by Sumerian etc. standards. We're talking about things that were preserved when Alexander fired Persepolis, though they were a few generations old by that point) that showed payment records for laborers under the state. There's a surprising number of women on payroll, even as unskilled labor, but at that level they receive I think 2/3rds the pay for the same work, so, you know, surprisingly modern then.  There was also a bonus paid to women who gave birth, again, sons brought in more money from the state. Still, it's basically paid maternity leave.Surprisingly, there are also a lot of records of female scribes and overseers, and these women seem to be getting paid just as much as their male counterparts.
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Jul 24, 2013 15:03
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Captain Postal posted:I had always thought matriarchal was limited to episodes of Xena and other bad tv shows, along with myths and legends. Which civilizations are you referring to? Were they "equal but different" or actually equal? I'm ~20 years behind in the field, but most of the foundational work on it was done by Marija Gimbutas. Gimbutas had the benefit of being an exceptional archaeologist and thinker, and the burden of being very mid-1900s politicized and quasi-batshit. Batshit as in, there's not a lot of differentiation in her critical analyses between what she found and what she wished she'd found. So it's propagandized all to hell, and the slightest push sends it spinning off into Thor Heyerdahl territory. Fun to read though. Pre-Minoan Crete was the biggest focal point. Thera/Santorini as well, though this society was pre-eruption. That would be one of the candidates for the lost city of Atlantis, for those of you following along at home.  I have no idea where the field is at now, to be honest with you. I got the impression back in the day that Gimbutas had scooped up much of the data and dumped her crazy all over it, and since then no one had bothered to actively out-excavate her. Her general concept of a more gender-neutral Neolithic Med being invaded by patriarchal warrior culture is pretty well-received though.
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Jul 24, 2013 15:34
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Did anyone make comparisons between the early Roman kings and the emperors during the early Empire? I thought it would be really obvious for anyone critical of the emperors.
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Jul 24, 2013 15:47
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Bitter Mushroom posted:Are there any examples of techniques/technologies that were 'better' in ancient times, and subsequently forgotten? For example I read that some ancient navigators (who when and where I do not know) had a better technique that has since been lost to the ages. Or the old Roman napalm, which I've always imagined is green fire for some reason. Well, we don't know how the hell the Polynesians managed to find all those tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific. That might be what you're thinking of? Nowadays we don't need to unlock their secrets because of GPS and all. Which is why there are so many techniques that were 'better' than what we might use, but our technology means that our manual labor/slave handling/stone hauling techniques can languish.
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Jul 24, 2013 16:03
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karl fungus posted:Did anyone make comparisons between the early Roman kings and the emperors during the early Empire? I thought it would be really obvious for anyone critical of the emperors. Mostly everyone with the balls to call them out on something like that had been massacred by the various generals and dictators where the case was also just as obvious.
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Jul 24, 2013 16:29
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euphronius posted:I doubt anyone could build a great pyramid today using the tools used then. Pretty sure we could if we could somehow wrangle together the sheer number of labourers to do it. It'd cost an insane amount of money just to prove the point that; a) We know maths as well (better) than the ancient Egyptians. b) We can rustle up a few thousand+ able bodied men who can follow a design blueprint. But overall there is very little (nothing?) Ancient cultures could do that we care about and cannot do better or at least equally well. For those we don't care about, mostly it'd be the equivalent of spending years perfecting the perfect trebuchet, instead of just rolling up with a howitzer. Great if you want to do something cool or learn about things but practically useless if you want to break down some fortifications. Still it is really cool to read about the inventive things Ancient people did to get around the fact they didn't have modern technological assistance but still needed to do something really difficult. Cast_No_Shadow fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Jul 24, 2013 |
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Jul 24, 2013 17:32
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I believe there would be more masonry and construction issues than a math issues. Like how to move the blocks, how to set them with precision, how to build the scaffolding, etc. I am sure modern man could figure it out, but we could not do it today. And by modern man I mean men alive today, not modern man, which the Egyptians were, of course.
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Jul 24, 2013 17:40
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euphronius posted:I believe there would be more masonry and construction issues than a math issues. Like how to move the blocks, how to set them with precision, how to build the scaffolding, etc. I don't understand your argument? At the time they were built the Pyramids were not a summer project, they took years if not decades to make and finish. Give the right selection of modern men the same number of labourers, the same type of tools and same amount of time they took to figure things out and build it back then and I'd be flabbergasted if they couldn't. I think you are seriously underestimating modern engineering, stone masonry and architectural knowledge.
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Jul 24, 2013 17:50
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Did you miss the part of my statement where I said "using the tools they used then". How far is modern knowledge going to get you without modern materials and computer design. I don't think we could build a Great Pyramid. euphronius fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Jul 24, 2013 |
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Jul 24, 2013 17:52
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Bitter Mushroom posted:Are there any examples of techniques/technologies that were 'better' in ancient times, and subsequently forgotten? For example I read that some ancient navigators (who when and where I do not know) had a better technique that has since been lost to the ages. Or the old Roman napalm, which I've always imagined is green fire for some reason. Obviously we have since relearned how to make it, but the making of concrete was a lost art for a while.
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Jul 24, 2013 17:58
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euphronius posted:Did you miss the part of my statement where I said "using the tools they used then". It's not like Physics was different back then.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:01
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Alchenar posted:It's not like Physics was different back then. Did you miss the part where he did we could do it, but it would take a while to figure out ("we can't do it today)?
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Jul 24, 2013 18:07
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euphronius posted:Did you miss the part of my statement where I said "using the tools they used then". So you're saying that everything we know about civil engineering is stored entirely on computers and no one in the world knows any relevant formula or method for doing this by hand any more. Not only that, they couldn't figure it out either because apparently they don't even understand the principles behind what's going on. Or are you saying we're to dumb to do maths without a calculator? Also, something I forgot to mention, if they can construct better tools using only what was available then as a starting point the task probably gets exponentially easier. ^^^^ Tell me about the time the Egyptians woke up had and idea and finished their Pyramid by bed time.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:07
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Good Lordplushpuffin posted:Did you miss the part where he did we could do it, but it would take a while to figure out ("we can't do it today)? Obviously we could do it eventually. The Egyptians were better at using wood, stone, fiber, human power, and water to build huge Great Pyramids than we are on July 24, 2013.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:09
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He's saying there are techniques for accomplishing things like that using only manual labor and primitive instruments which have since been lost and would need to be rediscovered. You guys need to lay off.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:10
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euphronius posted:Good Lord You know except for that whole first hundred or so years where their pyramids sucked and collapsed or needed to be "bent" to stay stable. Pretty sure we could figure that stuff out in much less time. plushpuffin posted:He's saying there are techniques for accomplishing things like that using only manual labor and primitive instruments which have since been lost and would need to be rediscovered. You guys need to lay off. There's entire groups of archaelogists who spend their time working out how people did things back then. And unlike say Greek Fire methods of building structures that are still around tend to be much easier to deduce.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:11
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It took them like 1,000 years to figure out how to build a GOOD pyramid. They started with small step pyramids, the next guy would make his bigger. When they started to make them look less step like they had trouble with angles, and collapsing pyramids and stuff like that. There was an excellent documentary about the evolution of the pyramids on Netflix that I watched a while back, but I don't think its on there anymore.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:12
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You really haven't explained yourself well, or I've being really dumb. I said, given the same amount of time the Egyptians took to go from idea -> finish pyramid. I cannot think of a fairer way to compare this pointless thought experiment. Also, the vast majority of the labourers on the Pyramids were people who usually worked on farms and had jack poo poo to do in the off season. I highly doubt these people had expert knowledge of how to shape gigantic hunks of stone, how to transport them vast distances or how to measure accurately. It's far more likely a small cadre educated, intelligent designers and artisans (or whatever the equivalent was) planned poo poo out, and over a period of time taught or instructed people on how to do these tasks. Are you saying that when the Egyptians first build that first pyramid they instantly know how everything was going to work and didn't need to figure stuff out? If you are not, then why are you suggesting we cannot do the same. This a dumb argument, we're both dumb for having it.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:15
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It would be a huge big fiasco if we started to build a Great Pyramid™ today with bronze age technology only, but if we started with smaller projects and progressing to bigger ones I'm sure that over time we'd have gained all of their know-how. It's not unfeasible to us, it just would be a pointless course for us to take. However, until the time we follow that path we indeed do not know the exact way in which they were built. Presumably bottom-up 
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Jul 24, 2013 18:16
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It's pretty much a given that we'd fail at building a new Great Pyramid, or at least do a much worse job than the ancient Egyptians would have, if we tried it today using ancient technology and techniques. There's simply nobody around anymore with that kind of knowledge, because those skills are not needed anymore. We'd learn eventually, of course. edit: Oops, beaten horribly by not refreshing the page in the last 30 minutes Alekanderu fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Jul 24, 2013 |
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Jul 24, 2013 18:28
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Install Gentoo posted:There's entire groups of archaelogists who spend their time working out how people did things back then. And unlike say Greek Fire methods of building structures that are still around tend to be much easier to deduce. Well, obviously, it's easier to build a copy of something than it is to build it originally (see: the recently resurrected and reverse-engineered F1 engine), and even without using CAD we could do a better job using our superior knowledge of materials, math, and physics. The question really should be: how long would it take us to re-create the most sophisticated pyramid with our modern knowledge but using only instruments available to the ancient Egyptians (research time and construction time), how many people would it require, and how many would die during construction?
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Jul 24, 2013 18:38
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