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my dad posted:Pretty major archaeological find in Serbia, 4th century golden and silver curse tablets in the Roman necropolis in Viminacium, the contents of which provide rather interesting insights about the expansion of Christianity and coexistence of Christians and pagans. In addition, there's a number of tablets that are either magical symbols or written in a coded language (or gibberish, I guess). I've partially translated it: 
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Aug 10, 2016 23:53
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Mr Havafap posted:I've partially translated it: So I'm in her room when her betrothed shows up with his Greek friend....
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Aug 11, 2016 00:10
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Mr Havafap posted:I've partially translated it: "girl" and "printer" are both in there because "gently caress printers", right?
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Aug 11, 2016 00:29
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Yeah I don't know where he got Printer, that's obviously Infantry Division. Or 10-20 Legions, to use the contemporary term.
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Aug 11, 2016 01:06
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Mr Havafap posted:I've partially translated it:
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Aug 11, 2016 04:06
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Mr Havafap posted:I've partially translated it: You missed an obvious one. 
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Aug 11, 2016 04:29
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Mr Havafap posted:I've partially translated it: Amazing.
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Aug 11, 2016 06:22
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Hogge Wild posted:I've understood that they ate a lot of cheese, because so many of them were goatherds. Not a whole lot of grazing land to raise cattle on in Greece
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Aug 11, 2016 15:52
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icantfindaname posted:Not a whole lot of grazing land to raise cattle on in Greece There's plenty of land. Cattle were primarily work animals and for transportation (plowing fields, pulling carts). Goats and sheep were the main herd animals for meat, milk, and wool.
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Aug 11, 2016 16:00
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Deteriorata posted:There's plenty of land. Cattle were primarily work animals and for transportation (plowing fields, pulling carts). Goats and sheep were the main herd animals for meat, milk, and wool. Plenty of extremely hilly/mountainous land, no? Which goats and sheep are fine with, cows not so much.
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Aug 11, 2016 16:05
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If I remember correctly eating cows/chickens regularly is a relatively modern thing. They were primarily kept for milk and eggs, and only eaten after sacrifices or when they got too old to be otherwise useful.
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Aug 11, 2016 16:07
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feedmegin posted:Plenty of extremely hilly/mountainous land, no? Which goats and sheep are fine with, cows not so much. Yes, a smaller fraction is arable than other places, certainly, but the population wasn't that high either. They had enough land to grow crops and feed themselves. Lots of groves of olives and grapes. I guess my point was that they could have had big cattle herds if they'd wanted, but sheep and goats were smaller and easier to manage, and more generally useful. That seems to be more important than pastureland availability. Sheep and goats can be handled by men on foot. Cattle are big and unwieldy, and require far more effort than they're worth. They were most useful as work animals. It's not all lush prairie like the American Midwest, but it's good enough for their purposes. ETA:  Deteriorata fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Aug 11, 2016 |
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Aug 11, 2016 16:17
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Finally a semi-decent English writeup on the finds in Viminacium http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/43652 quote:Buried with one of the skeletons dating to the 4th century were two small lead cylinders holding three rolled up sheets, one of silver, two of gold. The silver and gold sheets had writing and symbols inscribed on them. One of them has Greek letters but is written in Aramaic, not Greek. Archaeologists have identified an intriguing combination of names on it: Baal, Yahweh, and Thobarabau, Seneseilam and Sesengenfaranges, three deities/demons (depending on whether your perspective is polytheistic or Christian) native to what is now Syria. A curse tablet inviking the powers of both Baal and Yahweh is unprecedented. The sheets themselves, as found: 
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Aug 11, 2016 16:17
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Deteriorata posted:Yes, a smaller fraction is arable than other places, certainly, but the population wasn't that high either. They had enough land to grow crops and feed themselves. Lots of groves of olives and grapes. It's more of an efficiency thing than cattle being difficult to manage, horses are a lot worse than cattle in that sense. Beef cattle are slaughtered at a young age (usually sent to be "finished" at feedlots when under a year old) and you need an enormous amount of grazeland to support that. To produce one animal for consumption, you need enough feed for two animals (mother cow and calf) and the cow is not really useful for milk production or other work because all her energy is devoted to birthing and nursing a calf each year. The modern beef industry is in semi-arid steppes like the American Great Plains which aren't really useful for growing crops. Edit: cattle are also pickier eaters than goats or sheep (see, for example, cattle bloat). Beef is just a super inefficient use of land. Also there might be issues with the kinds of grasses they have in Greece, are they warm season, cool season grasses? How do you feed your cattle in the off-season? In modern times this is done by storing hay for the winter but I dunno much about the vegetation in Greece. Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Aug 11, 2016 |
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Aug 11, 2016 16:46
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So what was the deal with all the religious significance given to cows, then? You never hear about magical goats or the gods taking the shape of a sheep to interact with mortals in the myths.
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Aug 11, 2016 19:14
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SlothfulCobra posted:So what was the deal with all the religious significance given to cows, then? You never hear about magical goats or the gods taking the shape of a sheep to interact with mortals in the myths. If I had to guess, I would say it had something to do with how bulls, particularly, are big and powerful and able to seriously gently caress you up on a whim. They represented the wildness and unpredictability of nature.
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Aug 11, 2016 19:21
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Because they're symbols of wealth, if you really want to make an impression you sacrifice a huge fuckoff bull that took 5 generations of selective breeding to make, not your scraggly goat you use to make cheese.
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Aug 11, 2016 19:53
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Yeah, in a place like Ancient Greece cattle were a status symbol the same way a garage full of the most expensive Porsches is. And they're just about as practical.
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Aug 11, 2016 20:19
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Cattle was almost the currency in pre-English Ireland. Ownership of cattle was vital to nobles, because renting cattle to clients would provide them with followers and supporters.
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Aug 11, 2016 22:02
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I'm getting King of Dragon Pass flashbacks. garstal
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Aug 11, 2016 22:08
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It might even be the inspiration. Probably the most important Irish folktale is the Táin Bó Cúailnge, or the Cattle Raid of Cooley. Gaelic cattle raiding was a huge business.
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Aug 11, 2016 22:26
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Were horse raids a thing too? I know the Plains Indians loved to steal horses and they were basically a currency too, wondering if that was also the case with other horse or chariot cultures.
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Aug 11, 2016 23:04
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Pellisworth posted:It's more of an efficiency thing than cattle being difficult to manage, horses are a lot worse than cattle in that sense. This reminds me of a cool lecture we had at uni which was essentially titled "Why you do not want to be a male domesticated animal" Your lifespan is short unless you are extremely lucky. Sorry, silly aside.
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Aug 11, 2016 23:17
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NLJP posted:This reminds me of a cool lecture we had at uni which was essentially titled "Why you do not want to be a male domesticated animal" Yep, every batch of adorable chicks that hatch from the incubator end with half of them getting tossed right in the industrial sausage grinder.
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Aug 11, 2016 23:45
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Pellisworth posted:Were horse raids a thing too? I know the Plains Indians loved to steal horses and they were basically a currency too, wondering if that was also the case with other horse or chariot cultures. Horses were less useful in the Classical period than cattle; the modern horse collar hadn't been invented yet. Saying they were only used for warfare is a broad generalization, but ... from what I recall, they were pretty much only used for warfare. So I guess you'd steal them if you wanted to endanger your life first by stealing and then being in an ancient battle.
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Aug 11, 2016 23:48
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Dozens of people were killed in cattle raids in South Sudan a while ago. No need for the past tense.
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Aug 11, 2016 23:56
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The Minoans were really into bull-leaping. It's not clear whether it was entertainment or religious ritual, as they left no written record of it, only art. The dancers would get the bull to charge them, then when it lowered its head to gore them they would leap and grab the bull's horn. They would then do a flip and land on the bull's back.  Diagram of how they think it worked: 
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Aug 12, 2016 00:02
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People need to give bulls a loving break.
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Aug 12, 2016 00:07
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NLJP posted:This reminds me of a cool lecture we had at uni which was essentially titled "Why you do not want to be a male domesticated animal" Yeah, modern beef production will have one bull to "service" 30-40 or so cows, and you'll only keep enough heifers (young cows) to replace your older cows which have a productive lifespan of ~10-12 years. Bull calves are usually castrated immediately after birth or a few months later. So if you're born male you've got about a 1 in 30-40 chance of not being castrated and eaten in a year or two, and if female maybe 1 in 10-12 of not also becoming hamburger. Deteriorata posted:The Minoans were really into bull-leaping. It's not clear whether it was entertainment or religious ritual, as they left no written record of it, only art. The dancers would get the bull to charge them, then when it lowered its head to gore them they would leap and grab the bull's horn. They would then do a flip and land on the bull's back. This looks unbelievably dangerous and stupid. Though bulls can be very tame and docile, I'm guessing they probably selected dopier bulls and trained them for this otherwise your rate of injuries and gorings would be incredible. Edit: actually I'd be more afraid of a cornered mother cow (you're vaccinating her calf or something) than most bulls. Wild or aggressive bulls are obviously not something you want to keep or breed for unless it's specifically for fighting or something. Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Aug 12, 2016 |
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Aug 12, 2016 00:47
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It's actually about ethics in beef cattle raising.
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Aug 12, 2016 01:08
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Ras Het posted:People need to give bulls a loving break. And yet so many cultures have a beef with them.
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Aug 12, 2016 01:33
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homullus posted:And yet so many cultures have a beef with them. Despite having huge balls, if you poll bulls you'll find they're actually not horny at all. no one will get this terrible pun
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Aug 12, 2016 01:38
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Pellisworth posted:This looks unbelievably dangerous and stupid. Though bulls can be very tame and docile, I'm guessing they probably selected dopier bulls and trained them for this otherwise your rate of injuries and gorings would be incredible. I was just thinking it would be a lot easier to use a model bull. Which conveniently ties into the Daedalus myth.
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Aug 12, 2016 01:44
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Pellisworth posted:This looks unbelievably dangerous and stupid. Though bulls can be very tame and docile, I'm guessing they probably selected dopier bulls and trained them for this otherwise your rate of injuries and gorings would be incredible.
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Aug 12, 2016 02:24
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You definitely couldn't do that with a goat. The real world has a lot of acrobats who do crazy things. I expect somebody figured out how to do that with a bull on a slow day goofing around doing stupid things that they shouldn't.
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Aug 12, 2016 03:11
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SlothfulCobra posted:I expect somebody figured out how to do that with a bull on a slow day goofing around doing stupid things that they shouldn't. So...Ancient Greece had Goons?
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Aug 12, 2016 04:16
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Ynglaur posted:So...Ancient Greece had Goons? I don't think they kept cattle indoors.
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Aug 12, 2016 04:18
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I was actually just reading about bull leaping, it's still done in Spain and southwest France today.
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Aug 12, 2016 04:28
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Pellisworth posted:Despite having huge balls, if you poll bulls you'll find they're actually not horny at all. I get it.
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Aug 12, 2016 06:42
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Grand Fromage posted:If I remember correctly eating cows/chickens regularly is a relatively modern thing. They were primarily kept for milk and eggs, and only eaten after sacrifices or when they got too old to be otherwise useful. Of course 'relatively modern' is a bit broad term, but iirc it was quite common to eat poultry in medieval era. And I think that the most important function for the cattle in Greece was to pull plows.
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Aug 12, 2016 08:36
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