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Tunicate posted:
ψ l̵̨̛̬̰̓͗̂e̶̘̤̍̇t̶͍͔̘̣͝ț̸̀͛͆̑͠e̶̘͉̱̳͆̃̀̕ŗ̷̙͍͛̓͌s̶͕̜̀ ̷̫̥̜̜͆͐̂͘ă̶̟̆̅̌n̶̻͓͎̘̎̉ͅd̵̪͎̟̏̎̄ ̴͕̏͋̋w̷̨͕̮̉̋̈́o̷͖̾͊̏́̄r̶̩̓d̶͎͆̒s̸͓̹͖͚̀͊̈́ͅ ̸̫̺̕ͅr̵̮͓̈́͆̃̅̍ͅë̷͈̘̻́͗c̶̢̳̘͍̰͛̿̎͝ȏ̴̻͍̣̐̿̉͝ͅg̸̦̰͙͚̗̈́n̷̮̚i̶̤͕̓̽z̷̢͚̯͍͑͂̃̽ą̸͕̔̇͐̀͝b̵̞̗͙̰̈́̂̀̄̈́l̵͓̠̽́͂̂͋ĕ̶̫̫̍̏̃ ⛧
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Aug 29, 2017 03:46
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 21:38 |
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I spent at least 30 seconds trying to find dickbutt in that.
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Aug 29, 2017 05:22
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Disinterested Stepdad posted:I spent at least 30 seconds trying to find dickbutt in that. Loss/goatse but yeah.
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Aug 29, 2017 05:33
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Don't Fall For Babylonian Trigonometry Hype is a good commentary on the ancient math tablets from a few days ago's discussion.
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Aug 29, 2017 23:01
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So I finally decided to start writing again, and I'm looking for some source material for my dumb lady-conan fantasy bronze age epic. Finding books, documentaries, lectures, etc on bronze age kings and war and elite poo poo is easy enough, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of some good books on everyday life and society in the late bronze age Mediterranean/middle east. I know that's a broad category, but even something like a paper on the evolution of the shekel as a weight/money would be useful. I'm looking to answer questions like did anything like inns/restaurants/taverns exist? What was currency like before the invention of coinage? Is there any information on the day-to-day function of the palaces? In return, I started a post a long time ago on Hellenistic Navies that I thought was pretty cool.
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Aug 30, 2017 00:48
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If you can find it in a library near you it might be worth taking a look at a Cambridge History of the Ancient Near East/ Mesopotamia/ Ancient World (no idea what it's called but there's gotta be one), they generally have a broad coverage so there'll be stuff devoted to daily life and society and so on.
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Aug 30, 2017 02:17
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FishFood posted:So I finally decided to start writing again, and I'm looking for some source material for my dumb lady-conan fantasy bronze age epic. Finding books, documentaries, lectures, etc on bronze age kings and war and elite poo poo is easy enough, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of some good books on everyday life and society in the late bronze age Mediterranean/middle east. I know that's a broad category, but even something like a paper on the evolution of the shekel as a weight/money would be useful. I'm looking to answer questions like did anything like inns/restaurants/taverns exist? What was currency like before the invention of coinage? Is there any information on the day-to-day function of the palaces? In return, I started a post a long time ago on Hellenistic Navies that I thought was pretty cool. Before coinage, transactions were either barter or with standard measures of precious metals or commodities. Standard prices might be set in terms of goats, bushels of barley, or weight of silver, for example. Coinage was basically the government guaranteeing a set weight and purity for a coin, so that the metal could be exchanged more easily - by counting coins rather than weighing out individual pieces of metal.
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Aug 30, 2017 02:26
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FishFood posted:So I finally decided to start writing again, and I'm looking for some source material for my dumb lady-conan fantasy bronze age epic. Finding books, documentaries, lectures, etc on bronze age kings and war and elite poo poo is easy enough, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of some good books on everyday life and society in the late bronze age Mediterranean/middle east. I know that's a broad category, but even something like a paper on the evolution of the shekel as a weight/money would be useful. I'm looking to answer questions like did anything like inns/restaurants/taverns exist? What was currency like before the invention of coinage? Is there any information on the day-to-day function of the palaces? In return, I started a post a long time ago on Hellenistic Navies that I thought was pretty cool. Letters to the King of Mari is probably a good read, since it's just a shitload of miscellaneous correspondance.
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Aug 30, 2017 02:45
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FishFood posted:So I finally decided to start writing again, and I'm looking for some source material for my dumb lady-conan fantasy bronze age epic. Finding books, documentaries, lectures, etc on bronze age kings and war and elite poo poo is easy enough, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of some good books on everyday life and society in the late bronze age Mediterranean/middle east. I know that's a broad category, but even something like a paper on the evolution of the shekel as a weight/money would be useful. I'm looking to answer questions like did anything like inns/restaurants/taverns exist? What was currency like before the invention of coinage? Is there any information on the day-to-day function of the palaces? In return, I started a post a long time ago on Hellenistic Navies that I thought was pretty cool. There was a sort of favor economy among people who lived close together in a society that knew each other long term. That makes a "barter" system more viable since you don't have both sides of a "transaction" at the same time, just gotta perpetuate the good will. For people who aren't going to know each other that long, they'll pretty much have to barter. Cows were one of the more common standards of value, but you could do it with pretty much anything. I read about one account of ancient sea traders pulling up to dock, putting their goods for trade out on a sheet, and then hiding in their ship, to which the people of the port town would put out their own goods and hide, and the exchange would continue that way until parties were satisfied, which seems like a good way to trade when both parties don't share any language or any common ground. As for taverns, I don't really know, but there are all those myths that center around the idea of providing hospitality to strangers.
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Aug 30, 2017 03:27
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The whole "put poo poo out on the ground and sort it out from there" style of trading was also done along the western coast of North America when the Spanish,Russians and English were making first contact with the various groups that lived there.
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Aug 30, 2017 03:51
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Iirc the Code of Hammurabi had some laws pertaining or involving taverns, with stuff like the penalty being death for letting people run crimes out of your tavern suggesting that they were seen as social gathering spaces at least that far back, and stuff like not loving people over for buying beer on coin versus barter suggesting they were places you could get a drink. That's early beer though, and way earlier than you seem to be heading for. I'll see if I can't dig up the specific translation that refers consistently to a "tavern-keeper" as a specific role, separate from innkeeper or agent of exchange for example. It was an old (early 20th c) translation though. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp quote:108. If a tavern-keeper (feminine) does not accept corn according to gross weight in payment of drink, but takes money, and the price of the drink is less than that of the corn, she shall be convicted and thrown into the water. 108: if you gently caress people over who buy beer with money instead of corb/barter, you get drowned. 109: if you don't narc on the meso-mafia in your bar, you die. 110: I want to say this is about hookers. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Aug 30, 2017 |
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Aug 30, 2017 03:52
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108 seems to me more like the reverse - it protects the rights of people who want to barter rather than to pay with coin. It's like "c'mon lady. Your drink is 5 drachmas, and we're offering you 6 drachmas worth of corn here. Are you going to serve us, or are we going to have to drown you in the Euphrates?"
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Aug 30, 2017 04:13
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CommonShore posted:108 seems to me more like the reverse - it protects the rights of people who want to barter rather than to pay with coin. It's like "c'mon lady. Your drink is 5 drachmas, and we're offering you 6 drachmas worth of corn here. Are you going to serve us, or are we going to have to drown you in the Euphrates?" Note that there were no coins in Hammurabi's day. "Money" refers to a given weight of precious metal. Coinage itself appeared ca. 700 BC in Lydia.
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Aug 30, 2017 04:17
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I would assume 110 is more about specific sorts of women attached to the religion, rather than all prostitutes. Like an order of priestesses who inherently swore to refuse to visit an unclean place like a tavern would be to stay ritually pure for instance.
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Aug 30, 2017 04:18
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CommonShore posted:108 seems to me more like the reverse - it protects the rights of people who want to barter rather than to pay with coin. It's like "c'mon lady. Your drink is 5 drachmas, and we're offering you 6 drachmas worth of corn here. Are you going to serve us, or are we going to have to drown you in the Euphrates?" It's under the condition that the tavern-keeper doesn't take corn for the beer. So like if they're like "ok 5 drachma for this beer" and somewhere along the line they check the beer against the price in corn (I'm assuming by weight in the context) and it's actually only 4 drachma worth of beer, in the water you go.
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Aug 30, 2017 04:19
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fishmech posted:I would assume 110 is more about specific sorts of women attached to the religion, rather than all prostitutes. Like an order of priestesses who inherently swore to refuse to visit an unclean place like a tavern would be to stay ritually pure for instance.
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Aug 30, 2017 04:19
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I mean in bronze age mesopotamia "priestess" and "prostitute" weren't mutually exclusive. Though I'd also tend to lean towards it being a ritual cleanliness thing.
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Aug 30, 2017 04:21
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cheetah7071 posted:I mean in bronze age mesopotamia "priestess" and "prostitute" weren't mutually exclusive. Though I'd also tend to lean towards it being a ritual cleanliness thing. Sure but there were tons of prostitutes that weren't attached to the religion. If they'd meant "no hookers at all" for that line, it'd be clear.
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Aug 30, 2017 04:25
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quote:179. If a "sister of a god," or a prostitute, receive a gift from her father, and a deed in which it has been explicitly stated that she may dispose of it as she pleases, and give her complete disposition thereof: if then her father die, then she may leave her property to whomsoever she pleases. Her brothers can raise no claim thereto. Granted, this may only be indicative of a similar legal status between "sister of a god" and hookers, but then there's discrete references to temple-maid and temple-virgin: quote:181. If a father devote a temple-maid or temple-virgin to God and give her no present: if then the father die, she shall receive the third of a child's portion from the inheritance of her father's house, and enjoy its usufruct so long as she lives. Her estate belongs to her brothers. It's entirely likely that the translation is anything but clear, but there seems to be a distinction between sister of a god and the religious stations.
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Aug 30, 2017 04:28
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Does that document also have terms that definitely, explicitly mean sacred prostitute? Because that tends to make me think sister of god might mean temple prostitute after all. Maybe the tavern prohibition is still a ritual cleanliness thing, so their customers can rest assured the sex is clean and sacred and not tainted by the dirtiness of the tavern.
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Aug 30, 2017 04:32
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One thing was that people were often paid in 'stuff' rather than 'money'. In Sumer, for example, workers were paid in food, clothing, beer, oil, and other goods. Obviously, as silver gets used more and more, they start switching to payments in weight of metal. Silver is mostly used for coinage, gold is generally far too rare during the bronze age. It is mostly used for jewelry. The first coins are simply pure metal stamped with an "official stamp" letting everyone know that it is a relatively uniform weight and purity. Obviously, the limitations in this system are quickly detected by counterfeiters, coin clippers, and then kings and rulers looking to save some cash. Certainly credit and lending exist in ancient times. Before Hammurabi's code, we have the praise-poems of Urukagina that mention some of the reforms he introduced. A cap on interest rates (20% for loans made in silver, and 25% for loans made in grain. In addition, he passed laws saying that if a rich man wants to buy a house from a poor man, he has to pay the price offered by the seller... and if the poor man refuses to sell, the rich man is not allowed to send thugs over to beat him up. Which implies that that sort of thing happened beforehand. (And, let's be honest, still happened afterwards).
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Aug 30, 2017 04:53
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cheetah7071 posted:Does that document also have terms that definitely, explicitly mean sacred prostitute? Because that tends to make me think sister of god might mean temple prostitute after all. Maybe the tavern prohibition is still a ritual cleanliness thing, so their customers can rest assured the sex is clean and sacred and not tainted by the dirtiness of the tavern. That translation doesn't, but I found a more detailed discussion on the specific wording, and it's pretty  , I linked pg 56, but you want to start from the last paragraph or so of pg 55:https://books.google.com/books?id=tNBCAAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA7&ots=1RB9BmsCE8&pg=PA56#v=onepage&q&f=false Basically, the text makes references to a feminine determinative that gets stuck before or after the term generally associated with "priestess" all over the place, and it's a complete clusterfuck because it presumably requires context only known to contemporary Sumerians. sullat posted:One thing was that people were often paid in 'stuff' rather than 'money'. In Sumer, for example, workers were paid in food, clothing, beer, oil, and other goods. Obviously, as silver gets used more and more, they start switching to payments in weight of metal. Silver is mostly used for coinage, gold is generally far too rare during the bronze age. It is mostly used for jewelry. The first coins are simply pure metal stamped with an "official stamp" letting everyone know that it is a relatively uniform weight and purity. Obviously, the limitations in this system are quickly detected by counterfeiters, coin clippers, and then kings and rulers looking to save some cash. I like the idea of measures of beer being used as the peg for other methods of payment - e.g. if you refuse corn in exchange for beer then you'd better be making sure the metal you're taking instead is paying for the same amount of beer that the amount of corn purchased by the metal would buy. That's probably not worded the best - basically if you take let's say an ounce of silver for a quart of beer, that ounce of silver had better be good for a quart-of-beer measure in corn, else in the river you go. Ancient legal codes are full of neat and weird and outright  poo poo because we grant that they weren't created arbitrarily, and had been created to regulate or mitigate certain behaviors. Thus, things like the no-cockblocking rule:quote:161. If a man bring chattels into his father-in-law's house and pay the "purchase price," if then his friend slander him, and his father-in-law say to the young husband: "You shall not marry my daughter," the he shall give back to him undiminished all that he had brought with him; but his wife shall not be married to the friend. or the "sold off the back of a truck" rule: quote:9. If any one lose an article, and find it in the possession of another: if the person in whose possession the thing is found say "A merchant sold it to me, I paid for it before witnesses," and if the owner of the thing say, "I will bring witnesses who know my property," then shall the purchaser bring the merchant who sold it to him, and the witnesses before whom he bought it, and the owner shall bring witnesses who can identify his property. The judge shall examine their testimony--both of the witnesses before whom the price was paid, and of the witnesses who identify the lost article on oath. The merchant is then proved to be a thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost article receives his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid from the estate of the merchant. or the deadbeat wife rule: quote:141. If a man's wife, who lives in his house, wishes to leave it, plunges into debt, tries to ruin her house, neglects her husband, and is judicially convicted: if her husband offer her release, she may go on her way, and he gives her nothing as a gift of release. If her husband does not wish to release her, and if he take another wife, she shall remain as servant in her husband's house. Then you get into the marital law stuff, which really gives the impression that Hammurabi really didn't want the drat court system bogged down with the same legal questions over and over. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Aug 30, 2017 |
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Aug 30, 2017 05:22
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I feel like throwing people in the river is a very poorly scaling method of execution.
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Aug 30, 2017 05:39
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Probably would've been a whole bunch of crocs in the river back then. Learning to swim is also not that common historically and still rare in many parts of the world.
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Aug 30, 2017 05:40
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OwlFancier posted:I feel like throwing people in the river is a very poorly scaling method of execution.
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Aug 30, 2017 05:50
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There's also the possibility that it's a trial-by-river: quote:2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser. michael phelps, crassus of mesopotamia
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Aug 30, 2017 05:57
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I'm now imagining this in a modern market economy, with specialised accusation companies hiring teams of specialists to find the worst swimmers in the country and accuse them of stuff to steal their homes
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Aug 30, 2017 06:05
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LMAO Hammurabi had a more progressive interest rate policy than the modern US. If you don't believe me head down to your local payday loan place and take out a 1 month loan at 425% interest.
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Aug 30, 2017 06:08
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Thanks for all the replies, everyone! Definitely going to check out that Cambridge volume and the Mari letters.
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Aug 30, 2017 07:02
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Bronze age is so poorly documented you have a lot of space to work with. I would say that in broad strokes, life for your average peasant did not change that much until the modern era. There are important differences like money not existing and the evolution of technology, but if you read accounts of peasant life in more documented eras a lot of it is generally applicable even back in the bronze age.
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Aug 30, 2017 07:42
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There's definitely some weird technologies that you think are prehistoric but are actually invented in the bronze or iron ages. Like, depending when your story is set, the saddle might not have been invented yet, so you'd either ride horses bareback or use a chariot. I think the plow is also something that may not exist yet?
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Aug 30, 2017 07:53
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On the subject, kinda: I'm writing an RPG campaign in the mythic scandinavian iron age. The primary theme will be deconstructing my players dumb notions about the viking age such as seen in HBO's Vikings. While there will be dragons, your loving sword+2 will be made of bog iron is what I'm saying. Now, an essential part of this is brushing off my knowledge on what daily life and technology was like in the iron age, do any of you guys have some good reads or websites I could check out to get a feel of things?
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Aug 30, 2017 07:57
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Well first off vikings were medieval, not iron age
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Aug 30, 2017 08:01
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Tias posted:On the subject, kinda: i believe you have misconceptions about the viking age yourself
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Aug 30, 2017 08:03
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Sorry, it's the whole Viking Age bullshit that throws me off. Essentially, I'd like to be akin to around 5-600 AD. I know from the days reading that people have already started hammering out iron weapons at this point, but what was life like, is what I'd like to know.
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Aug 30, 2017 08:06
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Tias posted:On the subject, kinda: E: thought you were trolling badly. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 08:10 on Aug 30, 2017 |
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Aug 30, 2017 08:07
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I can't tell if you are being serious at this point, so congratulations on being rear end in a top hat goon lords and making me look elsewhere I guess.
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Aug 30, 2017 08:09
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Tias posted:Sorry, it's the whole Viking Age bullshit that throws me off. Essentially, I'd like to be akin to around 5-600 AD. The problem is you've picked a period and area where we have extremely limited documentation, and Scandinavia itself has zero. Your best bet is probably to find work done on sub-Roman Britain and the Frankish kingdom and try to extrapolate something from there.
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Aug 30, 2017 08:13
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Tias posted:Sorry, it's the whole Viking Age bullshit that throws me off. Essentially, I'd like to be akin to around 5-600 AD. You're going to have a lot of trouble finding detailed sources for life in Scandanavia in that time period, I'd imagine. You'll have more luck setting it a few hundred years later (e.g., Vikings) or switching to the Anglo-Saxons in England who would probably have very similar lifestyles but there's just more written about them and the historical record is denser (because missionaries successfully converted them and then set up shop writing stuff down in books). cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Aug 30, 2017 |
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Aug 30, 2017 08:14
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 21:38 |
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This is what i know about iron-age Finland 1) Smoked meat makes good currency 2) Njerpez are assholes
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Aug 30, 2017 08:14
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