|
I'm late to the discussion, but the greatest insult from antiquity (or the early Medieval period, really) clearly was when Khosrau sacked Antioch and moved the population to a new city he built inside the Persian borders, which he named "Khosrau's Better-Than-Antioch."
Medenmath fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Jan 14, 2014 |
#
?
Jan 13, 2014 18:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 13:06 |
|
|
veekie posted:If you're a powerful god clearly you'd be a bigger rear end in a top hat than weaker gods. What's the point of power if you can't bully everyone with it. This kind of thinking pops up a lot, but I think it's a really tedious oversimplification of the super complex interplay between the gods in Graeco-Roman polytheism. I mean, just on a fundamental level, the idea that the gods were often petty cunts seems to generally reflect this sort of fatalism that we seen in Christianity too with things like "God works in mysterious ways". And just taking the practical human perspective (what else? it's not as if the gods genuinely existed), the hierarchy of gods wasn't classically all that important - that would inevitably lead to henotheism, which we do see in Judaism and the Sol Invictus practices, but not in, say, classical Greek tragedy and mythology. Zeus was king of the gods, but it's metaphorically super important to note that it was Demeter who nourished men, Dionysos and Aphrodite who drove them to madness and desperate measures and so on. So on a spiritual level these things are at least as important as Zeus' mythological statute at the top of the pantheon or Apollo's as the provider of divine wisdom. And that's not even considering the massive local variation in religious practices. You have to always dig out a symbolic meaning behind the massively bizarre mythological stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2014 19:12
|
|
|
I'm not sure whether this is better to ask here or the Bible thread (guessing here since I'm not interested in New Testament references) but what exactly were the Samaritan peoples in antiquity? It seems to be this mirror image of Judaism but I almost never hear anything about them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2014 19:46
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-nh7xOjkSs
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2014 19:54
|
|
Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
|
Berke Negri posted:I'm not sure whether this is better to ask here or the Bible thread (guessing here since I'm not interested in New Testament references) but what exactly were the Samaritan peoples in antiquity? It seems to be this mirror image of Judaism but I almost never hear anything about them. After the conquest of the northern kingdom, Assyria shipped all the natives out and resettled them in other parts of their empire. They then moved in other conquered people from elsewhere. The purpose was to keep everyone off balance and reduce the likelihood of local rebellions. The newcomers tried to assimilate into the local culture as best they could, and even attempted to adopt the Yahweh worship of the southerners. The Judeans never accepted them, however, and always regarded them as syncretist bastards.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2014 20:19
|
|
|
Berke Negri posted:I'm not sure whether this is better to ask here or the Bible thread (guessing here since I'm not interested in New Testament references) but what exactly were the Samaritan peoples in antiquity? It seems to be this mirror image of Judaism but I almost never hear anything about them. They're an ethno-religious group that diverged from mainstream Judaism by/around the 500s BC or so. They're basically disappearing now, so there's not this whole cultural and historical legacy attached to them that there is to Judaism, so we hear less about them. The story of the Good Samaritan comes from the reality of Jews and Samaritans being these hated enemies. In a historical quirk, the exile basically saved Judaism, while Samaritans converted en masse to Islam. Deteriorata posted:After the conquest of the northern kingdom, Assyria shipped all the natives out and resettled them in other parts of their empire. They then moved in other conquered people from elsewhere. The purpose was to keep everyone off balance and reduce the likelihood of local rebellions. This... This can't be quite right, can it? This sounds like a Jewish version of the events, but do correct me if I'm wrong. Ras Het fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Jan 13, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2014 20:20
|
|
|
I don't know about that particular instance, but the Assyrians were big on mass deportations and resettlement, so I wouldn't put that past them. Apparently it wasn't handled particularly brutally, either.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2014 21:07
|
|
|
Ras Het posted:This... This can't be quite right, can it? This sounds like a Jewish version of the events, but do correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not sure what you're objecting to. The Assyrian resettlement policies are well-documented by their own records and those of other civilizations. The above explanation is what the Jews themselves said as to why they hated the Samaritans.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2014 21:16
|
|
|
Berke Negri posted:I'm not sure whether this is better to ask here or the Bible thread (guessing here since I'm not interested in New Testament references) but what exactly were the Samaritan peoples in antiquity? It seems to be this mirror image of Judaism but I almost never hear anything about them. It's also been suggested (I'm getting it from Simon Sebag-Montefiore's Jerusalem) that the Samaritans descended from rural and lower-class Jewish populations that weren't exiled. By the time Darius of Persia ends the Babylonian exile, Jewish thought in both groups had gone through considerable change and evolution (this is when a lot of religious writings are made in Babylon) and when the exiles returned, the two had both diverged from a more unified Jewish school of thought that had existed pre-Exile. Certainly the Samaritans had notable differences already (the holy mountain of their faith is Mount Gerizim in today's West Bank, rather than Zion, today's Temple Mount).
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2014 21:22
|
|
|
Deteriorata posted:The above explanation is what the Jews themselves said as to why they hated the Samaritans. Exactly. Samaritans assert that they're descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel who've remained in Israel since wheneverthefuck, and you shouldn't take the Jewish histories as gospel.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2014 21:37
|
|
|
Ras Het posted:Exactly. Samaritans assert that they're descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel who've remained in Israel since wheneverthefuck, and you shouldn't take the Jewish histories as gospel. You probably shouldn't take the claims of the northerners as Gospel, either. The records of Sargon II directly describe the resettlement of Samaria after their conquest. ETA: From here: 
Deteriorata fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Jan 13, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2014 21:43
|
|
|
Deteriorata posted:You probably shouldn't take the claims of the northerners as Gospel, either. The records of Sargon II directly describe the resettlement of Samaria after their conquest. Right, but you'd have to consider the total demographics of the area. From what I understand the population transfer would've been like a fifth of the total population of Samaria, in light of which the idea of some sort of "Babylonian syncretism" underlining Samaritan history seems dodgy. I mean, the religious differences between the Jews and the Samaritans aren't massive, right? To me it seems much more tenable to posit that there was this divergence of religious practices among the "Proto-Jews", so to say, and later these historical events were made part of each group's religious history. Like with Samaritans saying the Jews brought a distorted form of their faith back from the Babylonian exile. e: I'm not entirely comfortable with genetical analysis, but it seems to have shown a lot of light in Jewish history, so here's a Wiki quote: The 2004 article on the genetic ancestry of the Samaritans by Shen et al. concluded from a sample comparing Samaritans to several Jewish populations, all currently living in Israel—representing Ethiopian Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Iraqi Jews, Libyan Jews, Moroccan Jews, and Yemenite Jews, as well as Israeli Druze and Palestinian Arabs—that the principal components analysis suggested a common ancestry of Samaritan and Jewish patrilineages. Most of the former may be traced back to a common ancestor in what is today identified as the paternally inherited Israelite high priesthood (Cohanim) with a common ancestor projected to the time of the Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel.[9] Archaeologists Aharoni, et al., estimated that this "exile of peoples to and from Israel under the Assyrians" took place during ca. 734 BC to 712 BC.[61] The authors speculated that when the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, resulting in the exile of many of the Israelites, a subgroup of the Israelites that remained in the Land of Israel "married Assyrian and female exiles relocated from other conquered lands, which was a typical Assyrian policy to obliterate national identities."[9] The study goes on to say that "Such a scenario could explain why Samaritan Y chromosome lineages cluster tightly with Jewish Y lineages, while their mitochondrial lineages are closest to Iraqi Jewish and Palestinian mtDNA sequences." Non-Jewish Iraqis were not sampled in this study; however, mitochondrial lineages of Jewish communities tend to correlate with their non-Jewish host populations, unlike paternal lineages which almost always correspond to Israelite lineages.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2014 22:06
|
|
|
sullat posted:The story gets even weirder, with Chinese legends of captured Romans then settling in Western China. Yeah, nobody really knows if the story is even remotely true, but that hasn't stopped the village near there from taking the story and running with it. It's a fun story but likely not true. I have read that at least one of the Roman captives ended up in Baktria, because there's an inscription there by him with his name and legion. There was DNA analysis of the inhabitants of that town and they don't have the DNA to be descendents of the legionaries. There were Caucasian looking people in what is now west China, called the Yuezhi. If anything, white-ish people in China/Central Asia like the ones in Liqian are probably descended from them. While it's unlikely the Chinese fought a testudo, it is quite likely that Chinese and Greek hoplites fought on that Chinese frontier with the Greco-Bactrians and Greco-Indians. Edit: Also yes I am using the term embassy in the historical sense, which is what we would call a diplomatic mission today. An embassy in the classical world isn't a building where people from another culture live for diplomatic purposes, it's a group of ambassadors and their various assistants. There may have been Roman traders living more or less permanently in China (we have no records of this but I would bet there were), but the embassies were visits by Roman diplomats. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Jan 14, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2014 01:42
|
|
|
My feeling on Samaritans is that the differences between their beliefs and modern Judaism are small enough to be explained by random drift within the two religions. A syncretic explanation simply complicates the picture, and doesn't add much to the picture. As the quote Ras Het shares says, Jewish men have very often taken gentile wives without changing their religion. What made this time different?
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2014 01:43
|
|
|
Weren't there late Roman Empire explorers that reached China? IIRC, they even exported some goods to China in the late second century.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2014 01:55
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:Edit: Also yes I am using the term embassy in the historical sense, which is what we would call a diplomatic mission today. An embassy in the classical world isn't a building where people from another culture live for diplomatic purposes, it's a group of ambassadors and their various assistants. Do we have particularly detailed accounts of when exactly they went and returned? I'm mostly interested in travel times.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2014 01:57
|
|
|
Squalid posted:My feeling on Samaritans is that the differences between their beliefs and modern Judaism are small enough to be explained by random drift within the two religions. A syncretic explanation simply complicates the picture, and doesn't add much to the picture. The Hebrews went gonzo after the return from the Babylonian exile. The returnees from Babylon were essentially invaders who kicked out the natives who had taken up residence in the ruins of Jerusalem. They considered themselves to be the "real" Jews who stayed ethnically pure in Babylon, and had special status because they were the ones who had borne God's punishment. Southerners who stayed behind were required to divorce their foreign wives if they wanted in, and the Samaritans were sub-human mongrels beyond redemption. Their theology was that the nation had been punished because they had strayed from the Law of Moses, and the only way to get back in God's good graces was to be hyper-observant of every law. Their version of the religion was the only acceptable one, and the mumbo-jumbo the Samaritans practiced was thoroughly old-school and offensive. The reality that they really weren't that far apart made no difference. ETA: It's estimated that only about 1/3 of the exiles in Babylon went back, so they were a self-selected bunch of religious bigots. Deteriorata fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Jan 14, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2014 01:58
|
|
|
Noctis Horrendae posted:Weren't there late Roman Empire explorers that reached China? IIRC, they even exported some goods to China in the late second century. They had regular trade links for centuries and diplomatic contact for over a thousand years. Roman trade goods are found as far east as Japan, and evidence of the Roman trade network itself (amphorae and coins) all the way to Vietnam. PittTheElder posted:Do we have particularly detailed accounts of when exactly they went and returned? I'm mostly interested in travel times. Unfortunately, the documentation comes from official Chinese imperial records, and those are... curt, at best. The first embassy arrived in 166. The Chinese record the Roman emperor who sent them as Andun, which is believed to be Antoninus. The problem is Roman name reuse, and Antoninus could be Antoninus Pius (Titus Fulvius Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Augustus Pius) or Marcus Aurelius (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus). Antoninus Pius died in 161, so if they came from him that was a hell of a trip. The Chinese say that the Romans came to Vietnam and then were taken up to Luoyang to meet with the court and emperor. So they probably went by ship. Even in those days a sea journey from Egypt -> Arabia Felix -> India -> Wherever they might've stopped over -> Vietnam, then up to Luoyang either by boat or land, probably didn't take more than a year. Andun is probably Marcus Aurelius--even if a year is conservative, five years seems ridiculous. We don't really know though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2014 02:11
|
|
|
"We spent a year going to a realm beyond the gods favor. Found some silk, spices, saw some neat stuff. Spent a year traveling back, to tell you about our journey, O pious and venerable Caeser tha....what's that? Commodus? Really? He's the...uh huh...he's...Commodus? Really?" *gets back on camel drawn cart*
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2014 05:08
|
|
|
New pharaoh's tomb discovered from about the 1600s BC, which might be of interest if there any Egyptian scholars here. From my point of view, knowing little about the Egyptians, I always find it funny how they had risen and declined centuries before the Greek and Roman empires were even a twinkling in the eye. They were more ancient than what most modern people today consider ancient.quote:Cairo: Archaeologists in Egypt believe they have discovered the remains of a previously unknown pharaoh who reigned more than 3600 years ago. http://www.smh.com.au/world/unknown-pharaoh-uncovered-in-egypt-20140116-hv8o5.html
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2014 21:51
|
|
|
Octy posted:New pharaoh's tomb discovered from about the 1600s BC, which might be of interest if there any Egyptian scholars here. From my point of view, knowing little about the Egyptians, I always find it funny how they had risen and declined centuries before the Greek and Roman empires were even a twinkling in the eye. They were more ancient than what most modern people today consider ancient. It's really pretty stunning. The Egyptian Kingdom was as old to the Romans as the Roman Republic is to us. The Roman conquest of Egypt is closer in time to the present day than it is to the building of the pyramids at Giza. Hell, Rome was (mythologically) founded nearly 2400 years after the first pharaohs of Egypt.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 18:43
|
|
|
Here's the press release from Penn Museum. What's really interesting is that our dear Senebkay hails from a previously unknown dynasty centered around Abydos. Egyptologist Kim Ryholt was the first (and maybe only?) person to speculate on its existence, back in '97. From his book, page 163: The Political Situation in Egypt During the Second Intermediate Period, c. 1800-1550 B.C. posted:Three Second Intermediate Period kings, whose names are not preserved in the Turin King-list, are attested only by monuments at Abydos: Wepwawemsaf Sekhemreneferkhaw, Pantjeny Sekhemrekhutawy and Snaaib Menkhawre. In each case, we are dealing with a single stela of exceptionally crude quality. Two of the three kings, Wepwawemsaf and Pantjeny, further have birth-names (nomina) which connect them directly with the Thinite nome. [...] On the basis of these names, the confinement of their stelae to Abydos and their poor quality, it may be suggested that the three kings constitute a local Abydos (or Thinite) Dynasty. It continues with more proposed evidence (such as this dynasty being the reason why it took so long for the [Hyksos] Fifteenth Dynasty to attack the [Theban] Sixteenth), but there's the main of it. The idea never really caught on as far as I'm aware. Until now, at least.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 19:27
|
|
|
operative lm posted:Here's the press release from Penn Museum. What's really interesting is that our dear Senebkay hails from a previously unknown dynasty centered around Abydos. Egyptologist Kim Ryholt was the first (and maybe only?) person to speculate on its existence, back in '97. I'm sorry but Wepwawemsaf Sekhemreneferkhaw looks like a researcher's cat walked across a keyboard and the name stuck.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 19:47
|
|
|
Not My Leg posted:It's really pretty stunning. The Egyptian Kingdom was as old to the Romans as the Roman Republic is to us. The Roman conquest of Egypt is closer in time to the present day than it is to the building of the pyramids at Giza. Hell, Rome was (mythologically) founded nearly 2400 years after the first pharaohs of Egypt. And then you get stuff like Göbekli Tepe, which threaten to redefine even that sense of scale.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 20:12
|
|
|
Not My Leg posted:It's really pretty stunning. The Egyptian Kingdom was as old to the Romans as the Roman Republic is to us. The Roman conquest of Egypt is closer in time to the present day than it is to the building of the pyramids at Giza. Hell, Rome was (mythologically) founded nearly 2400 years after the first pharaohs of Egypt. I can't find the reference now, but there was someplace in Assyria or Babylon ca. 1500 BC that had an ancient history museum. This stuff was old and mysterious 3500 years ago.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 20:16
|
|
|
The Entire Universe posted:And then you get stuff like Göbekli Tepe, which threaten to redefine even that sense of scale. I never heard of this, so I went to Wikipedia, and quote:History  There's some really old stuff out there. I mean there's even older simple tools and what not, but you can go see a serious human structure that is possibly 12,000 years old.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 20:18
|
|
|
Amused to Death posted:I never heard of this, so I went to Wikipedia, and What's neat is that you're probably looking at the oldest long-term human development as the Ag Revolution occurred around that time. Before that of course there were likely people that domesticated grains and stuff but most were hunter-gatherer and thus needed to be mobile to one degree or another. There's also the idea of worship being radically changed once you get agriculture, you may have previously asked for a blessing on the way to the hunt, gave thanks afterwards, but now you have long-term needs for divine placation since you have a harvest you depend on, so you're spending the mid-year asking for a good harvest, then having a big harvest/all hail the glow cloud festival, etc. Hunting? You basically just accept that you can't find/kill any food and take it as a sign to go elsewhere, lugging your mammoth skull with you over yonder land bridge.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 20:31
|
|
|
Amused to Death posted:I never heard of this, so I went to Wikipedia, and Yeah, Gobekli Tepe is absolutely nuts to think about. Then there's stuff like the Bronze Age Collapse; apparently there was a fairly bustling bunch of civilizations running about in the eastern Mediterranean basin, and then something happens and it all goes to poo poo. That only happened a measly 3000-3500 years ago, and we know next to nothing about it. To think that there's settled human history (prehistory properly I guess) going back another eight thousand years is pretty mind boggling. Really makes me wish time machines were real things. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jan 16, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 22:30
|
|
|
PittTheElder posted:and then something happens and it all goes to poo poo. Oh we all know what happened. Sea peoples I mean it's not just them, but I wanted to say it because it's honestly one of my favorite terms in history. I mean c'mon, "Sea People", it sounds like something out of a sci-fi book, and considering how much everything went to poo poo and the amount of cities around the Mediterranean they supposedly managed to destroy it may as well be. Also some of those apocalyptic "Please send help!" messages from the time. Big Cheese posted two of them a long while ago. Amused to Death fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jan 16, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 22:37
|
|
|
Amused to Death posted:Also some of those apocalyptic "Please send help!" messages from the time. Big Cheese posted two of them a long while ago. Those are creepy, but you have to consider that it's just a coincidence of preservation of historical record, that we've got this strange vague notion of Sea Peoples going round the Mediterranean wrecking poo poo up, when the most probable (although not quite provable) scenario is a volcano eruption or w/e causing this heavy migrations period, i.e. something comparable to the Late Roman migrations period. It's just that with the Huns and poo poo we've got a much better picture of what happened. If all we had from the 400s was a few letters and stelae saying "the Hairy Men destroyed the army and took my wife", it'd be well loving eerie too.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 22:57
|
|
|
Yeah I know, but it's just fun to focus on the Sea Peoples specifically because of the fact we only have fragmented knowledge of them that makes them seem like this omnipotent enemy appearing from the water laying waste to the entire coastline of Greece and the near-east. C'mon people, let your imagination roam and have some fun with history. e: I for one look forward to 4,000 years from now where after 6 more world wars the only surviving documents of this decade are from Glenn Beck and future historians ponder on what went wrong in American society to make them ever elected a communist-nazi dictator hell-bent on building FEMA death camps and implementing death panels and Sharia law. That's definitely gonna wind up creating some interesting theories. Amused to Death fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Jan 16, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2014 23:16
|
|
|
Amused to Death posted:e: I for one look forward to 4,000 years from now where after 6 more world wars the only surviving documents of this decade are from Glenn Beck and future historians ponder on what went wrong in American society to make them ever elected a communist-nazi dictator hell-bent on building FEMA death camps and implementing death panels and Sharia law. That's definitely gonna wind up creating some interesting theories. "I keep seeing this bizarre glyph appear in the old records. It appears to be a circle with 8 lines emerging from 2 sides, one of which appears to have a ring on it. What ever could it mean?"
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2014 02:27
|
|
|
Mesopotamian fart joke time! Below: the joke in question. Ninurta-paqidat's Dog-Bite Why Do You Cuss Me? (Alternate Title) Ninurta-paqidat, [the brother of] Ninurta-sha-kunnâ-irammu [and nephew] of Enlil-Nippuru-ana-ashrishu-ter, was bitten by a dog and went to Isin, the city of the Lady of Health, to be healed. Amel-Baba of Isin, the high priest of Gula, saw him, recited an incantation for him and healed him. "May Enlil, the lord of Nippur, bless (you) for the healing you have done! You must come to my city Nippur, so that I can bring you a coat, carve off the choicest cuts for you and give you barley beer to drink, two jugs full!" "Where exactly should I come to in your city Nippur?" "When you come to my city Nippur you must enter by Grand Gate. Keep Broad Avenue, the boulevard, and Right Street, the road of Nuska and Ninimma, on your left. Beltiya-sharrat-Apsî, the daughter of Ra'im-kini-Marduk and [daughter-in-law of] Nishu-ana-Ea-takla, who tends the garden called Abundance of Enlil, will be sitting at a plot on Right Street selling vegetables — ask her and she will show you." Amel-Baba of Isin, the high priest of Gula, came to Nippur. He entered by Grand Gate. He kept Broad Avenue, the boulevard, and Right Street, the [road of Nuska and] Ninimma, on his left. He found [Beltiya]-sharrat-Apsî, the daughter of Ra'im-kini-Marduk and [daughter]-in-law of Nishu-ana-Ea-takla, who tends the garden called Abundance of Enlil and sits [at a] plot on Right Street selling vegetables: "Beltiya-sharrat-Apsî?" "Yes, sir?" "Why are you being rude to me?" "Why am I being rude to you! What I said to you was ‘Yes, sir?' " "The house of Ninurta-paqidat, the brother of Ninurta-sha-kunnâ-irammu and nephew of Enlil-Nippuru-ana-ashrishu-ter — I am to ask you and you will show me." "He's not at home, sir." "Why are you being rude to me?" "Why am I being rude to you! What I said to you was ‘He's not at home, sir'." "Where has he gone?" "He's at the chapel of his god, Shuzianna, making an offering." "[Why] are you being rude to me?" "Why am I being rude to you! He's [at the chapel of] his god, Shuzianna, making an offering . . . He's a [real idiot], this one! The students should form a mob and drive him out of Grand Gate with their practice buns!" Written [for] the recitation of the apprentice scribes. Uruk. [Month m.] Year 1, Marduk-balassu-iqbi, strong king, king of Babylon. The punch line of the story is that the text is actually bilingual. The names of the characters are ridiculous and the man is bitten by a dog which is actually the animal symbol of the goddess Gula who is the goddess of healing (irony, am I right?) The girl is speaking Sumerian (badly) when it had already become a language like Latin. It wasn't until someone figured out that the Sumerian response "sir" is actually a pun that actually reads out “O (my) lord, I am a farter.” Yay!
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2014 17:52
|
|
|
Amused to Death posted:I never heard of this, so I went to Wikipedia, and Good grief. There wasn't even pottery when they (whoever they were) built that.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2014 20:05
|
|
|
ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Good grief. There wasn't even pottery when they (whoever they were) built that. They were just developing agriculture, if it's on the older end of those estimates. Think about that for a moment. Planting poo poo in the ground intentionally and growing it in a concise area for later consumption was the newfangled contraption all those whippersnappers keep talking about. They'd just found out how to not have to be roving plant bandits. Predates known forms of writing by some 4-5 thousand years.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2014 21:06
|
|
|
I can't even imagine how isolated and alone those first human settlements must have felt. I've never been alone in any sense - I live in an urban development of 200,000 people, and could walk hundreds of miles in almost any direction without ever straying more than a mile from some city, town or village, and know that everywhere I go, everybody speaks my language and (generally) abides by the same laws and customs. I can expect protection, shelter, medical care and food on demand. To be among the first ever permanent settled humans, though.... it boggles my mind. The world must have seemed so vast, unknowable and hostile. To be tied to a land and a way of life that was largely dependent on natural processes that were unreliable and uncontrollable. I know that a lot of this was true for the vast majority of human history, right up until fairly recently. But seeing those photographs of a 12,000 year old settlement really brought it home.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2014 21:35
|
|
|
I gotta wonder how it must have felt for the guys who were still nomadic, decide to go into a certain mountain pass and see a big rear end temple complex made of carved stone holy fuckballs.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2014 22:15
|
|
|
Agean90 posted:I gotta wonder how it must have felt for the guys who were still nomadic, decide to go into a certain mountain pass and see a big rear end temple complex made of carved stone holy fuckballs. gently caress, imagine what some isolated desert tribe thought when they wandered through a canyon and ran into Petra.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2014 23:52
|
|
|
Barto posted:Mesopotamian fart joke time! How did they figure out what the word for "farter" was? What kinds of texts talked about farting unambiguously, medical texts?
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 00:33
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 13:06 |
|
|
Oberleutnant posted:I can't even imagine how isolated and alone those first human settlements must have felt. I've never been alone in any sense - I live in an urban development of 200,000 people, and could walk hundreds of miles in almost any direction without ever straying more than a mile from some city, town or village, and know that everywhere I go, everybody speaks my language and (generally) abides by the same laws and customs. I can expect protection, shelter, medical care and food on demand. I suppose the Roman Empire is the first instance in history of being able to do that. I mean, at its peak you could be living in North Africa, walk along the coastline up through Asia and into Europe and take a ship to Britain and along the way you'd be able to rest assured that at least some people would speak the same language (of course, you'd only want to talk to the local elites, not the hoi polloi who wouldn't necessarily know Latin or Greek) and generally expect everyone to abide by the same laws and customs.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2014 01:44
|
|