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ChubbyChecker posted:not quite The actual turkish version of Constantinople is just Konstantiniyye. Didn’t get officially renamed until the fall of the Roman Empire in 1922.
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Dec 24, 2021 17:01
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This feels like a Saigon vs Ho Chi Minh City deal. Apparently the locals still call it Saigon.
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Dec 24, 2021 17:17
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drat, this is great, thanks a ton! And thanks to everyone else again, I'm saving things in a text document and/or finding and saving them on tripadvisor Grand Fromage posted:Yeah post as many Istanbul tips as you got, I'm sure this thread is full of people who want to go sometime. I'm one of them. Not that I was losing sleep over it or anything but it's nice that Istanbul travel talk is now mod-sanctioned.
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Dec 24, 2021 17:17
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Alright, Ravenna photo dump round two.    The Basilica of Sant’Apollinaire Nuovo, 6th century. While the structure has been repaired and rebuilt over time, still a fascinating specimen of what early Christian worship spaces were like--a classic aisled basilica with a transept and apse at the end. Most of the mosaics are original--in the last photo above, you can see disembodied hands superimposed over some of the columns. The church, and these mosaics, were commissioned by Ostrogothic King Theodoric, an Arian, and this mosaic in particular featured Theodoric and his court (note "PALATIVM" still visible). When Ravenna was retaken by the Romans the mosaics were redone to erase the heretic King, but done kinda sloppily. So now we have an empty palace! Also, the poster earlier asking about whether ground floor arcades were open to the exterior--here's some evidence they were.     The Orthodox, aka Neonian, Baptistry, late 5th century. Lot of baptistries still survive in Ravenna, and are distinguished between whether they were Arian or Orthodox. This one is notable because you can see Christ's pecker in the ceiling mosaic depicting his baptism by John the Baptist.   The Archepiscopal chapel, AD 430s. Now a part of a much larger and much more modern structure, this chapel features the oldest-surviving mosaics in all of Ravenna, preceding even the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia by a couple decades. Note again a beardless Christ, dressed in military garb, trampling a lion and a snake--symbols of temporal power. State propaganda much?   We saw an archaeologist working on San Croce while we were there! It was still closed to the public, but it was super cool seeing this being worked on while we enjoyed what had already been excavated and preserved.    Lastly, the Mausoleum of Theodoric. Quite underwhelming to be honest, as it's comparatively far away from the other sights in Ravenna, and...I mean, look at it. But still glad we went to see it, being the only extant example of secular Ostrogothic architecture in the world. And since the mosaic from the Palace of Theodoric was such a hit in the thread, have another: 
Judgy Fucker fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Dec 24, 2021 |
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Dec 24, 2021 17:39
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Constantinople has had a lot of names. Partly because it's known about far and wide by peoples who might not be able to work out the phonemes, so they just settle on something similar or a translation. Partly because sometimes people just came up with their own names for the city. Partly because some people in charge of the city went on wild and crazy power trips renaming the city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Istanbul Exonyms used to be a lot more common, but I think global mass media has led to a lot of bringing them into line and nationalism has led to people pushing for one specific name instead of what history has saddled them with.
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Dec 24, 2021 17:48
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Did Ravenna not get bombed in ww2?
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Dec 24, 2021 17:51
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euphronius posted:Did Ravenna not get bombed in ww2? Don't know for sure but I imagine not, as 1) all those mosaics above are, in fact, original--or at least, they are presented as such, and 2) Ravenna actually has an infamous history for not being a very strategic location. The reason it was ever the seat of authority in the first place is because in AD 408 Western Emperor Honorius, who resided in Milan, moved his court to Ravenna at the approach of the Visigoths who were invading from the north. His thoughts were that Ravenna was protected by a lagoon (long since vanished as the river silted up) and had sea access, making a siege survivable. What Honorius didn't anticipate was the Visigoths just ignoring Ravenna altogether, and marching straight down the peninsula toward Rome. So there's historic precedent for militaries ignoring Ravenna, lol.
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Dec 24, 2021 18:06
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euphronius posted:Did Ravenna not get bombed in ww2? Plenty of sites in Italy got bombed but it wasn’t quite as destructive as I thought. I even visited Messina and the Germans got the poo poo slapped out of them there and most of the ancient churches and sites were fine.
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Dec 24, 2021 18:19
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I thought I read that in Italy in particular the allies went to some pains to be careful about bombing as little historical stuff as possible
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Dec 24, 2021 18:22
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Koramei posted:I thought I read that in Italy in particular the allies went to some pains to be careful about bombing as little historical stuff as possible I can't imagine how many people were just like "gently caress, poo poo, this sucks, I really wanted to visit that someday..." while bombs were dropping all around
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Dec 24, 2021 18:24
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I heard on a podcast this week that Ravenna tends to be pretty chill wrt tourist smesh and is a great place for people who like to look at stuff without being surrounded by crowds - is this true?
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Dec 24, 2021 18:26
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Koramei posted:I thought I read that in Italy in particular the allies went to some pains to be careful about bombing as little historical stuff as possible I wonder if that was before or after Monte Cassino. Funny note I was stuck in Gaata most of last year on orders and right before we were gonna leave for an extended period of time and Italy opened up. I begged my Master Chief to be allowed to visit Monte Cassino and he said he would think about it. I was in despair because we were going to leave in two days and finally an officer who I was on good terms with asked me why I wanted to go to a casino so bad on our last day. Of course it got nixed. I couldn’t loving believe it.
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Dec 24, 2021 18:32
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CommonShore posted:I heard on a podcast this week that Ravenna tends to be pretty chill wrt tourist smesh and is a great place for people who like to look at stuff without being surrounded by crowds - is this true? That was my experience, yes. It's out of the way, but fairly easy to get to--a 75 minute train ride to and from Bologna was how we did it. It caters to tourists but it's not, like, Rome or anything--people who run small shops are much less likely to be proficient in English, as an example. There were tourists there but no crowds. "Chill" is a good word to describe the 8 hours we spent there, yeah.
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Dec 24, 2021 18:33
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Crab Dad posted:I wonder if that was before or after Monte Cassino. I can't immediately cite my sources, but I remember reading some account of this battle where whoever it was hemmed and hawed before commencing.
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Dec 24, 2021 18:48
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TipTow posted:Not that I was losing sleep over it or anything but it's nice that Istanbul travel talk is now mod-sanctioned. The first incarnation of this thread was me just posting pics of an archaeology study abroad I did in Italy so really it's going back to our roots. Koramei posted:I thought I read that in Italy in particular the allies went to some pains to be careful about bombing as little historical stuff as possible Ola posted:I can't immediately cite my sources, but I remember reading some account of this battle where whoever it was hemmed and hawed before commencing. Yeah, they did. Bombing Rome was very controversial and they tried their best to keep it limited. The bombing of Pompeii was another big one. They had wrong information that Germans were using the area as a hideout and there were a couple raids. A bunch of the site had to be rebuilt after the war. Italy had a lot of these incidents. Kyoto is another famous one, it was on the nuclear targets list but removed. Also suffered minimal conventional attack for the same reasons of being too culturally valuable to destroy.
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Dec 24, 2021 19:52
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There had been a bunch of fighting near Ravenna, but there wasn't much inside the city itself. The Germans pulled out to avoid being encircled, and the Canadians were able to take it without fighting. Most of the casualties happened later, when they tried to force a crossing of the Lamone.
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Dec 24, 2021 19:59
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Grand Fromage posted:Kyoto is another famous one, it was on the nuclear targets list but removed. Also suffered minimal conventional attack for the same reasons of being too culturally valuable to destroy. Supposedly Secretary of War Henry Stimson personally intervened to protect Kyoto because he'd gone there on his honeymoon or something.
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Dec 24, 2021 22:23
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CommonShore posted:I heard on a podcast this week that Ravenna tends to be pretty chill wrt tourist smesh and is a great place for people who like to look at stuff without being surrounded by crowds - is this true? I've not been but this is true of the larger nearby city of Bologna, which I can recommend as a base if people are going to Italy. It's a great city by itself and it's position means that Venice and Florence are an easy train ride away. It's also considered Italy's culinary capital so yeah it's got that going for it too.
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Dec 26, 2021 20:29
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Really anywhere outside Rome or Venice is notably more chill. Even places like Naples, nobody really goes there, they just make a day trip to Pompeii and head back north.
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Dec 26, 2021 20:58
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Grand Fromage posted:Really anywhere outside Rome or Venice is notably more chill. Even places like Naples, nobody really goes there, they just make a day trip to Pompeii and head back north. Naples is loving disgusting trash pit with some of the best museums anywhere in the world. Even Sicily was mildly cleaner. Catania was super chill. Better yet visit Rome and Naples for the museums then travel to Croatia for a more layed back and half the price Mediterranean vacation with noticeably cleaner aesthetics.
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Dec 26, 2021 21:52
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Seeing the Alexander mosaic was great, the whole archaeological museum is great. The pizza is great too. Visit Naples, if only to get some pizza gravitas you can throw around.
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Dec 26, 2021 23:00
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Naples museum is one of the best in the country and was totally empty, yeah. Half the art in the Rome intro is in there.
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Dec 26, 2021 23:10
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I remember being in Milan and randomly stumbling into some centuries old ruin (a partially preserved church wall and a pretty well preserved tomb below it) on a random street in the middle of the city.
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Dec 27, 2021 02:58
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Dec 27, 2021 04:04
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that's freaking me out so bad
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Dec 27, 2021 04:17
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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I wonder who was first to map the coast of that peninsula and go "huh that kinda looks like a boot"
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Dec 27, 2021 05:37
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Crab Dad posted:Naples is loving disgusting trash pit with some of the best museums anywhere in the world. True on both counts. When I popped into the grocery store to get some bottled water (because Naples tapwater is unsafe for drinking, despite Italy having the most delicious water I've ever had), I was chatting with the guy at the counter for a bit. He mentioned that the trash situation had gotten better recently and I blurted out, "This is better?!" without thinking and got a laugh out of him. Honestly incredible museums though.
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Dec 27, 2021 05:47
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Grand Fromage posted:Yeah, they did. Bombing Rome was very controversial and they tried their best to keep it limited. The bombing of Pompeii was another big one. They had wrong information that Germans were using the area as a hideout and there were a couple raids. A bunch of the site had to be rebuilt after the war. Goes both ways. The Germans didn't bomb Oxford, either, iirc Hitler wanted it as his regional capital or something. (Coventry got pasted, though, despite at the time also being full of mediaeval buildings, which funnily enough are all gone now, but it was also where half the UK's tanks were produced sooo)
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Dec 27, 2021 18:07
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Did the ancient Mediterranean world have any concept of alcohol in terms of there being some common substance in wine, beer, and other intoxicating beverages that provided their power? Sometimes I wonder what the Romans would have made of distilled liquor if Gay Black Caesar discovered how to make brandy or the like.
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Dec 28, 2021 03:20
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Woolie Wool posted:Did the ancient Mediterranean world have any concept of alcohol in terms of there being some common substance in wine, beer, and other intoxicating beverages that provided their power? Sometimes I wonder what the Romans would have made of distilled liquor if Gay Black Caesar discovered how to make brandy or the like. Not really, no. They knew they made you drunk, and the third century Roman Empire knew about distillation as a general process, but alcohol wasn't really distilled and isolated as a thing until Arab alchemists did it in the 9th and 10th century.
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Dec 28, 2021 05:33
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Which, why was I surprised to learn al-cohol was discovered by arabs just like Al-gebra and the az-imuth
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Dec 28, 2021 07:12
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Even if you didn’t understand the chemistry or other science behind it, or even that alcohol was a distinct substance, shouldn’t there have been some kind of idea that there was some unifying factor giving all these different types of drink the exact same effect on people? It’s not just “certain things make you feel funny” it’s “These specific things all make you feel funny in the exact same way”.
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Dec 28, 2021 08:26
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there's less need for a word encompasing all intoxicting drinks when your society has only invented two of them, though
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Dec 28, 2021 08:30
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galagazombie posted:Even if you didn’t understand the chemistry or other science behind it, or even that alcohol was a distinct substance, shouldn’t there have been some kind of idea that there was some unifying factor giving all these different types of drink the exact same effect on people? It’s not just “certain things make you feel funny” it’s “These specific things all make you feel funny in the exact same way”.
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Dec 28, 2021 08:36
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I can't imagine discovering booze would put you in a mood to document it meticulously. "Maybe it's the foamy apple juice talking, but you've got a butt that just won't quit" Azza Bamboo fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Dec 28, 2021 |
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Dec 28, 2021 08:46
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Woolie Wool posted:Did the ancient Mediterranean world have any concept of alcohol in terms of there being some common substance in wine, beer, and other intoxicating beverages that provided their power?
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Dec 28, 2021 08:46
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There’s a word usually translated “strong drink” in Biblical Hebrew, shekar, which in the Septuagint Greek became sicera. in the poetic terminology this is usually paired with wine (yayin) as to encompass everything boozy. Probably could include beer or cider or mead or whatever else anyone knew about.
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Dec 28, 2021 14:52
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cheetah7071 posted:there's less need for a word encompasing all intoxicting drinks when your society has only invented two of them, though Julius Caesar introduced cider to the Roman world from Britain according to wiki, they had mead and iirc made some sort of berry wine, blackberries I think. A cursory google is suggesting they also used dates and mulberries.
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Dec 28, 2021 22:44
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Drinks mid-ferment have very similar flavors (normally described as "green apple") and aging alcohols pre-pastuer is dicey. In modern times, I can go to an Eritrean restaurant and get tej that hasn't fermented to completion (and as such is whatever their version of safe-treif is). Plus, sour beers tend to have a vinous quality so all fermented products having a strong "green apple" flavor plus sort of tasting the same beyond that plus making you feel the same way. Well, our ancestors weren't stupid. Plus, even in Roman times while they didn't have a germ theory of disease, they knew that you could recreate a particularly good wine by reusing the lees and that using the lees from good wines results in future wines being better. The past is a foreign country, their quality wines were probably strongly reductive and vegetal (which makes some of their odd flavorings make a lot more sense) and otherwise piquette (which also would benefit from some of their odd choices). But they basically had the same tastebuds we do. So, it is worth trusting their judgement and it is bad to underestimate them.
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Dec 29, 2021 06:12
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Vitruvian Manic posted:In modern times, I can go to an Eritrean restaurant and get tej that hasn't fermented to completion (and as such is whatever their version of safe-treif is). Ethiopian too.
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Dec 29, 2021 06:45
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