|
Grand Fromage posted:There was also a belief by at least some ancient geographers that only part of the world was habitable. As you continued south, it got hotter and hotter until it was impossible to live there, same with the north and cold. There were others who asserted this was true, but once you got to the other side of the globe there would be another habitable zone and it was simply impossible to cross between the two because of the heat. I mean you can see why they might think that, the north bit is actual facts and humans like symmetry. Nobody living at the North Pole.
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 20:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 14:13 |
|
|
euphronius posted:Duncan does tons of focused episodes on culture and the last 100 episodes deal (necessarily) with religion. It's been a couple years since I listened to it so maybe I'm being unfair, that's what I recall though. Looking through the episode list I see a handful of episodes about non-military/political stuff but not a lot. In terms of religion he does talk about it some but I don't remember much except in terms of how it relates to Constantine and Julian the Apostate, and maybe a little bit about the council of Nicea. Which is fine since it's not super exciting unless you are into theology and you can't cover everything. The History of Byzantium podcast in contrast spends tons of time explaining what the monophysites believed, he has a whole episode on iconoclasm and he interviews a Phd candidate who specializes in Byzantine religion. And that's only within the first 50 episodes or so. It just depends on what you're looking for. I would never steer somebody away from HOR but it has a limited scope.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 20:46
|
|
|
OctaviusBeaver posted:I liked The History of Rome as far as it went, but I think a more accurate title would be "The Military and Political History of Rome" since that's all he really touches on. You get a list of emperors, some court intrigue and a description of where the legions marched. But you get almost nothing about Roman literature, art, philosophy, science, economics or religion. I really liked Will Durant's Caesar and Christ which you can pick up pretty cheap as an audio book. I'm sure it won't be popular in this thread since it's kind of old and I'm sure some of his analysis is either outdated or no longer in vogue, but he spends a lot of time covering all of the stuff that the History of Rome podcast ignores completely. He touches on a lot of that and the series is 250+ episodes as it is, you have to have some kind of focus.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 21:07
|
|
|
Epicurius posted:It's older, but check out "A History of the World in 100 Objects" by Neil McGregor. He was the Director of the British Museum at the time, and he looked at 100 different objects from the museum's collection, from prehistory to today, and looked at what each object told us about the culture that produced it. I listened to that on the radio when it came out. It's really good. I've just started his history of Germany series, and he's got one about religion coming out atm.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 22:17
|
|
|
CommonShore posted:It's possible to fire porcelain with seasoned wood, that's well above what's needed for bronze, so yes it's is easily within the realm of possibility. Thanks. Are there any later stages in the process that need a good fire, or once you've cast it is it all cold-working from there?
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 03:58
|
|
|
The Lone Badger posted:Thanks. Are there any later stages in the process that need a good fire, or once you've cast it is it all cold-working from there? Bronze will work harden, so it must be annealed periodically when it's cold-worked or it will get brittle and crack. That requires getting it to red heat.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 04:09
|
|
|
Don Gato posted:Wait what. skasion covered it pretty well. Romans who went to China probably went via Vietnam, and there are hints that the Kattigara trade post had Roman traders on the regular but we don't know. We are pretty sure Romans were out in India enough that it wasn't remarkable, even maintaining a permanent outpost at Muziris which was somewhere on the southwest coast, so given that context Vietnam isn't a huge stretch. The sea routes to China used trade posts in Vietnam. Chinese records are pretty clear about Romans coming to China semi-regularly (there are also Roman records from the 600s that describe politics in China with some accuracy), and later the imperial family married a daughter off to the Mongols to secure an alliance so technically the same imperial family sat on both the Roman and Chinese thrones for a bit which tickles me.  Here's a Chinese drawing of a Roman merchant bringing coral, one of the popular trade goods from the empire to China. Glass was the other big one since the Chinese didn't have the technology, they often refer to it as being some form of crystal. The story I really want is about the Japanese woman found in a Roman imperial tomb. Somebody had a waifu somehow. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 04:22
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:The story I really want is about the Japanese woman found in a Roman imperial tomb. Somebody had a waifu somehow. Wait what?
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 04:23
|
|
|
Jack2142 posted:Wait what? I can't find the article again because everything coming up is about Roman stuff found in Japanese tombs, but there have been more DNA tests of assorted Roman corpses over the past several years trying to figure out where people were coming from. Two of the most interesting was that Japanese woman in Italy, and a few bodies from Londinium who were East Asian but unsure where exactly. I would like to believe that Londinium was hosting Europe's first Chinatown.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 04:36
|
|
|
I'd like to believe that it was Europe's first Chinatown but it seems just as likely to me that exotic slaves sold for a premium.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 05:04
|
|
|
I found an article, it sources the study too if someone else feels like reading that:quote:a recent isotopic and mitochondrial DNA study of burials on the Imperial estate at Vagnari, southern Italy, has indicated that one of the adults buried there in the first or second century AD was likewise a migrant of 'East Asian' ancestry, given that 'all modern mtDNA matches to her available haplotype sequence are from Japan'. 1st/2nd century is insane, Japan had only just emerged from the neolithic at that point. I wonder if this might speak to strong Han Dynasty influence beyond its borders in the northeast too, which is something there's been some debate on. Han China held direct control (via the Han Commanderies) only as far as parts of northern Korea, but there's evidence that they fairly routinely meddled in affairs farther to the south too, in the southern Korean chieftainships, and I've seen it argued that they likely held some degree of sway in the same way over adjacent regions in Japan. If Japanese people were interacting with the Han Commanderies in large enough numbers that at least one of them ended up going all the way to Rome, it seems like some pretty strong evidence for that.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 05:48
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:I can't find the article again because everything coming up is about Roman stuff found in Japanese tombs, but there have been more DNA tests of assorted Roman corpses over the past several years trying to figure out where people were coming from. Two of the most interesting was that Japanese woman in Italy, and a few bodies from Londinium who were East Asian but unsure where exactly. I would like to believe that Londinium was hosting Europe's first Chinatown. Shame, that sounds interesting especially on whose Imperial Tomb it would have been. Also the mongols thing are you talking about under the Palaiologos? I am pretty sure that was after the Mongol Empire split and that was only with the Golden Horde and Ilkhanate, not the Yuan Dynasty.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 05:52
|
|
|
Jack2142 posted:Also the mongols thing are you talking about under the Palaiologos? I am pretty sure that was after the Mongol Empire split and that was only with the Golden Horde and Ilkhanate, not the Yuan Dynasty. That's all the same family though, isn't it? I don't know Mongol royalty that well but I thought all the parts of the empire went to different sons of Genghis Khan. Koramei posted:I found an article, it sources the study too if someone else feels like reading that: Ah yeah. I should've known it was her site, Caitlin Green is great.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 05:56
|
|
|
Captain Oblivious posted:So this is semi tangential but: I don’t suppose any of you know of any good history podcasts? Doesn’t need to be roman history, and I’m aware of drunk history, but my commute just got a lot longer and I figured this thread would probably know of something Some good suggestions were already made but I wanted to toss in The British History Podcast by Jamie Jeffers. He really does a great job at going deep with his analysis using not just the written record but archaeological sources as well. kTo put in context the depth he goes, he’s 270ish episodes in and just approaching the 11th Century with about 230 episodes covering the 5th-11th centuries.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 06:49
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:That's all the same family though, isn't it? I don't know Mongol royalty that well but I thought all the parts of the empire went to different sons of Genghis Khan. Jochi wasn't a true son. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 07:04
|
|
|
Wouldn't the fact that we are talking about traders in India and Indochina mean that we are probably much more likely to be talking about traders from the southern coasts of Arabia and from the Persian gulf, also probably Aramaean traders from Mesopotamia (who we know at least were pretty active in Central Asia trading with the Sogdians)? Anyway, all areas outside the Roman Empire. Just because they are bringing Roman goods doesn't make them Roman, or that Romans brought those goods there. As far as we know, if I recall right, there really is no definitive evidence for there ever having been any direct contact between the Roman and Han Empires, commercial or otherwise. Grand Fromage posted:
What's the description say? In what way is he a Roman? As far as I know Coral coming from the west would mostly come from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf (the last one also known for pearls, especially the area around the current UAE IIRC), one area under only partial Roman control and the other area outside.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 10:54
|
|
|
Randarkman posted:
If you mean before the 7th century, yes, the only evidence are Chinese writings about people who claimed to be envoys from Rome, which might be true or not - probably at best Roman merchants, giving themselves some imagined authority. But by the 7th century, we have very convincing and frequent descriptions and accounts from both sides.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 11:16
|
|
|
china documented sending an envoy to rome at one point in the early-mid empire, he ended up in syria (probably) and thought he was in the capital the roman merchants definitely didn't leave all of the indian ocean trade to the folks who actually lived on its coast though - that would involve paying a cut to the middlemen. they used the red sea to get out into the indian ocean, and sent pretty big trade fleets every year until the crisis of the third century at the least
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 14:17
|
|
|
Randarkman posted:
He's Roman because part of the description says "Roman Empire Merchant from the West" The rest is in ancient Chinese and I have only the vaguest idea what it says.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 18:44
|
|
|
They're people who call themselves Roman and worship the Roman gods, that was good enough for the Greeks...and the Germans.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 18:47
|
|
|
Don Gato posted:He's Roman because
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 19:19
|
|
|
HEY GUNS posted:the nose The New Jersey accent.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 20:28
|
|
|
Ynglaur posted:The New Jersey accent. Naming calls, Joe.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 20:31
|
|
|
He's Roman because of the hat. Why they'd send clergy to trade is probably obvious
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 20:32
|
|
|
Don Gato posted:He's Roman because He was born in Rome prior to 476AD?
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 20:52
|
|
|
Jazerus posted:china documented sending an envoy to rome at one point in the early-mid empire, he ended up in syria (probably) and thought he was in the capital This was also one of the goals of Trajan invading Mesopotamia, get a port under their control closer to India than the red sea.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2018 20:59
|
|
|
Randarkman posted:As far as we know, if I recall right, there really is no definitive evidence for there ever having been any direct contact between the Roman and Han Empires, commercial or otherwise. Depends if you believe the Chinese archives were just making poo poo up. I don't see why they would bother to lie. Whether or not they were official embassies or just Roman merchants stretching the truth to get an audience, who knows. Roman traders were quite interested in getting to China directly because they could avoid paying through the nose to the Parthian and/or Persian middlemen. Randarkman posted:What's the description say? In what way is he a Roman? The translation I could find: "The Country of Da Qin [the Roman Empire], is where western businessmen are gathering. The king wraps his head by cloth in pyramid shape. This land produces coral, gold, brocade with pattern, silk cloth (without pattern), pearls, etc." The best documented period is the 600s-700s, where there were frequent embassies between Constantinople (Fulin) and China. For ancient contact we're relying entirely on Chinese records, but during this time there are both Chinese and Roman records. Beyond the trade relations we also have a description of the Northern and Southern dynasties period in China from a Roman historian, which is not terribly detailed but is accurate.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2018 05:42
|
|
|
Dalael posted:He was born in Rome prior to 476AD? born in constantinople at any point 330ad-present, inclusive
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2018 05:45
|
|
|
Dalael posted:He was born in Rome prior to 476AD? i will fite u.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2018 05:58
|
|
|
I like the Chinese description of the Roman government: "Their kings are not permanent rulers, but they appoint men of merit. When a severe calamity visits the country, or untimely rain-storms, the king is deposed and replaced by another. The one relieved from his duties submits to his degradation without a murmur." It's so delightfully innocent. Those honorable Romans, never once fighting about who gets to be emperor. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2018 06:01
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:It's so delightfully innocent. Those honorable Romans, never once fighting about who gets to be emperor. Every time there's inclement weather they choose a new one so I'm sure everyone gets a shot.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2018 06:11
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:I like the Chinese description of the Roman government: I mean it's kind of like the consulship but by way of a 300 step game of telephone. Didn't the Romans have some crazy ideas about the Chinese government too? I remember reading somewhere they were convinced that only the wisest philosopher Kings could rule China.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2018 06:13
|
|
|
I'd wonder how much was them actually being misinformed versus simply using the other as an example of good governance to use as a moral example or whatever and willfully embellishing the details.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2018 06:20
|
|
|
I'm currently reading Mark Kurlandky's "Salt", and I'm really disappointed with a lot of inaccuracies in it. "Soldier" coming from the salt payment of legionnaires, a really, really simple distinction between plebeian and patrician, Rome apparently being occupied by the Celts for 40 years after the sack of 390 BCE, Marco Polo introducing Pasta to Italy (even if you don't accept the fried version from Republican times as Pasta, boiled Pasta has been mentioned some 200 years before Marco Polo in Sicily), the Venetian marshes being the reason for the "Seven Seas" saying (it was one of the things it was applied to, but we have centuries older usages by Romans for the saying, applied to different "seas"). Worst of all he says "hall" (Halle, Hallstatt, Hallein, Bad Hall) means salt in the Celtic language, and "gaul/gallic" comes from this and means "men of salt". I can't find anything connecting Gallia with Hall as word origin, which seems iffy in the first place, Gallia being several hundred miles and hundreds of Celtic tribes from the traditional salt mines in the Austrian/Italian Alps. And Hall as Celtic word isn't something that's very certain at all, and very credible explanations actually put the use of Hall as word connected to mining into the early Medieval times, since the earliest mention of Hall as mining town name (Halle bei der Saale as Halla) stems from 806, while all earlier mentions of "Hall"-related areas use Salinas. And that's the parts I know something about, I fear similar inaccuracies in the parts about China, Arabia or Egypt.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2018 06:48
|
|
|
Mr Enderby posted:People on the English-speaking internet who aren't american get self-conscious and performative about their backgrounds. This is true of Canadians, but being self-deprecating sarcastic cynics who are also insanely egotistic supremacists is just straight up English culture at work. You even see it in some of the old school WASPs in New England in some regard.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2018 06:53
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:I like the Chinese description of the Roman government: Wait when was this written, because I guess in the Republican era it would be correct. Maybe some Roman dude just told them about the Republic and they went "hmm that makes sense".
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2018 06:53
|
|
|
Decius posted:I'm currently reading Mark Kurlandky's "Salt", and I'm really disappointed with a lot of inaccuracies in it. "Soldier" coming from the salt payment of legionnaires, a really, really simple distinction between plebeian and patrician, Rome apparently being occupied by the Celts for 40 years after the sack of 390 BCE, Marco Polo introducing Pasta to Italy (even if you don't accept the fried version from Republican times as Pasta, boiled Pasta has been mentioned some 200 years before Marco Polo in Sicily), the Venetian marshes being the reason for the "Seven Seas" saying (it was one of the things it was applied to, but we have centuries older usages by Romans for the saying, applied to different "seas").  I hate it so much when popular history books have errors like that. Unfortunately happens a lot when journalists sit down and write a book it seems, last time I tried to read a book like that I had to put it down because it was annoying me too much. Kind of a shame because the rest of the book seemed pretty alright, just the parts that I knew about made me cringe. Well, at Kurlandky didn't make the book mostly about himself and his "journey" I suppose?
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2018 07:03
|
|
|
It also could fit the weird layer of obfuscation that the princeps model tried to maintain, and especially the whole thing with so many emperors lacking traditional familial ties to their predecessors. Alternatively, it could refer to governors, it could be a futile attempt at interpreting Diocletian's system from a traditional monarchist view, or it could be even referring to further down the line when Byzantine emperors just maimed their predecessors instead of killing them, which is some kind of egalitarian I guess.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2018 07:10
|
|
|
Grevling posted:
No, it's written as standard "book about a topic", not the popular travelogue sprinkled with trivia. Yeah, I wanted to relate the story he wrote about of the Celts from Central Europe from around 2000 BCE found in graves to the west of Tibet as one example relating to the discussion of the trade and travel of Europe with China even very early on - but how reliable is this story with all the other inaccuracies in mind? I can't factcheck it on the quick. As said, annoying, as it makes you distrust all other factoids in the book.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2018 07:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 14:13 |
|
|
Marxist-Jezzinist posted:There are no Turks, just Western Mongols, who are Eastern Finns. Turks are pretty much the result of some mad science experiment combining Greek and Persian culture. Which is actually really cool, but alas most Turks would not like this description. Vaginal Vagrant posted:Two questions. Incoming ranty thing.  There have been black Greeks in modern times. The Ottoman slave trade resulted in Africans ending up in all sorts of crazy parts of the wider Middle East that you wouldn't expect, and in lots of cases you had some groups just sort of settling down and being absorbed into whatever the local culture was. Like... Abkhazia! Yes, Abkhazia! http://abkhazworld.com/aw/history/624-african-presence-in-former-soviet-kfikes-alemon  Or I know first hand that you had some Africans end up in Cyprus and being absorbed into either Turkish or Greek identity, I think more went Turkish (guess who the slave owners had been), but there were some who went Greekward as well.  I like the next one in particular since it seems to have just been a group photo of a village, priests and all (so we know they're Greek). And front and center is an older black dude and a black kid. Cypriots can range from pretty pale to looking like they could come from Delhi, but these two are unambiguously sub-saharan African. And just sort of otherwise seamlessly part of the still life. http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Cyprus/Geo/OldPhotos/CyprusOldPh00034.jpg These folks generally also got absorbed largely into the surrounding population trait wise as well over time. So I don't think you can find such obviously African ancestry based people running around too much of old Ottomania. But the traces still exist. My brother in law's spouse (my wife is Cypriot) is apparently partly descended from these people, and it is actually pretty noticeable in her face and stuff. And though I've never seen it, her natural hair is literally a straight up afro, not a Middeast style Jew fro, like the real deal. She keeps it heavily permed usually. But really, all and all if she was walking down an American street she would get assumed to be a light skinned black person (like Afro Puerto Rican, or Dominican or something). And she is Greek. A black Greek. I really want her to be able to visit us in the States some time, because the amount of brains she would break would be astronomical lol. All the more helped by my brother in law (thanks to being a quarter English in ancestry) being damned pale for a Cypriot and dirty blonde on top of that. Imagine them walking together down the street, and having someone call them out for race mixing, only to be greeted by both cussing at him in heavily accented Greek. Brains broken left and right man. Anyway if even the modern Greeks, inundated like the whole globe is by all that noxious rear end 19th century race science, can 100% no question accept her as Greek. Yeah I'm gonna say the ancient ones would have been chill with some similar equivalent in their midst. Grape fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Jun 2, 2018 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2018 07:36
|
|