Roman/ancient history: Checkmate, Atenists

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skasion: Feb 13, 2012; Why don't you perform zazen, facing a wall?

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

Also, unrelated, how likely is Cleopatra's suicide-by-snake to be a real thing? Are there other people supposed to have died that way?

Every ancient source agrees that she died of poison, and the story that the poison was delivered by an asp appears very early, within a couple years of the event itself. Some sources, including Strabo who was a contemporary, were open to the possibility that the poison may have been delivered some other way (i.e. orally or by a poisoned oil on the skin). Some also thought (Strabo again) that she could have been poisoned by someone else rather than committed suicide. It's hard to say for sure what happened because she didn't die in public, but the snake story definitely isn't imperial spurting semen-tier scholarship, it was the accepted version of events throughout the ancient world so far as we know. There isn't anything innately implausible about her smuggling a snake into her house-arrest to kill herself and it's as well attested as anything in antiquity, so might as well believe it.

# ? Apr 6, 2017 21:38

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# ? May 27, 2024 07:39

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

skasion posted:

imperial spurting semen-tier scholarship

I hope this stays a term

# ? Apr 6, 2017 21:47

Octy: Apr 1, 2010

Since we're on the topic of Egypt, this popped up on my Facebook just now. http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/02...ional-identity/

quote:

On a cool Sunday evening in March, a geochemist named Sun Weidong gave a public lecture to an audience of laymen, students, and professors at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, the capital city of the landlocked province of Anhui in eastern China. But the professor didn�t just talk about geochemistry. He also cited several ancient Chinese classics, at one point quoting historian Sima Qian�s description of the topography of the Xia empire � traditionally regarded as China�s founding dynasty, dating from 2070 to 1600 B.C. �Northwards the stream is divided and becomes the nine rivers,� wrote Sima Qian in his first century historiography, the Records of the Grand Historian. �Reunited, it forms the opposing river and flows into the sea.�

In other words, �the stream� in question wasn�t China�s famed Yellow River, which flows from west to east. �There is only one major river in the world which flows northwards. Which one is it?� the professor asked. �The Nile,� someone replied. Sun then showed a map of the famed Egyptian river and its delta � with nine of its distributaries flowing into the Mediterranean. This author, a researcher at the same institute, watched as audience members broke into smiles and murmurs, intrigued that these ancient Chinese texts seemed to better agree with the geography of Egypt than that of China.

I don't know enough about Egyptian or Chinese history to say whether it's all just BS, but it makes for an interesting read if you have nothing else to do.

# ? Apr 6, 2017 23:04

Squalid: Nov 4, 2008

Octy posted:

Since we're on the topic of Egypt, this popped up on my Facebook just now. http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/02...ional-identity/

I don't know enough about Egyptian or Chinese history to say whether it's all just BS, but it makes for an interesting read if you have nothing else to do.

Phone posting but that sounds like utter bollocks to me, the Nile delta is dynamic system which today looks very different than it did 3+ thousand years ago. Today it has two distributaries, and according to Wikipedia Pliny the Elder says it had seven in Sima Qian's day and I really doubt this crank is using a map that accurately reconstructs the delta as it looked 4 thousand years ago.

# ? Apr 6, 2017 23:32

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

what does he have to say about the shape of the relevant plateau, though

# ? Apr 6, 2017 23:36

Mantis42: Jul 26, 2010

Thats pretty absurd. Xia might be semi legendary but they're the predecessor state of actual existing Chinese dynasties, and there's no reason to think they migrated halfway across the globe.

# ? Apr 6, 2017 23:40

CommonShore: Jun 6, 2014; A true renaissance man

Mantis42 posted:

Thats pretty absurd. Xia might be semi legendary but they're the predecessor state of actual existing Chinese dynasties, and there's no reason to think they migrated halfway across the globe.

Typical Ivory Tower academic doesn't want to acknowledge my world-changing discoveries because they'll all look like idiots and they don't want to rewrite all of the textbooks that they're making mad bank from. Fat cat historians.

# ? Apr 7, 2017 01:46

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

I'm reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms and I thought you guys would enjoy a historical precedent brought up by one of the characters:

"Prince He of Chengyi committed 3000 offenses in just 28 days, and so Huo Guang deposed him."

This Prince He sounds like just the sort of historical figure this thread loves.

# ? Apr 7, 2017 01:53

Squalid: Nov 4, 2008

Jeb Bush 2012 posted:

what does he have to say about the shape of the relevant plateau, though

I don't see anything in the article about plateaus? Anyway the quote from the Sima Qian is so short as to be almost impossible to interpret. For example without more context it seems reasonable to assume he's describing the ancient course of the Yellow River through the North China plain, which if you refer to the map in my post history quite distinctly pointed north-east during the period when the Xia civilization was presumed to have existed, and as this was in an era before large scale human modification of the channel likely would have had several small distributaries.

It is a good article though, the body is mainly about Chinese historiography and explains how far western theories for the origin of the Chinese people arose from early nationalists looking for new narratives influenced by European research.

# ? Apr 7, 2017 02:09

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Squalid posted:

It is a good article though, the body is mainly about Chinese historiography and explains how far western theories for the origin of the Chinese people arose from early nationalists looking for new narratives influenced by European research.

Yeah these parts are interesting. It's a stretch, there's no evidence of the Xia existing at all though so anything about them is a stretch. I not-so-secretly enjoy anyone poking at the conventional narratives of Chinese historiography though since it's so bad.

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

I always think of places like Egypt as having already been completely excavated.

It's easy to think that way but there's nowhere in the world that's completely excavated! We still find stuff all the time even in places like Rome and Athens, and space archaeology has changed everything because it's turning up literal thousands of completely unknown new sites all over the place.

If I had to do over again I would have gotten into space archaeology, it wasn't a thing yet when I was in college and it's the most exciting field now. That or stuff in the Americas, which I had no interest in at the time because I grew up in the US and don't really find the native history there exciting. But you go down to Mesoamerica or South America and there are huge cool empires and stuff, and that field is exploding right now so whoops.

# ? Apr 7, 2017 03:04

cheetah7071: Oct 20, 2010; honk honk; College Slice

I work with lidar for a much less interesting reason but I'm glad my chosen field has detected a bunch of ruins in the Amazon

# ? Apr 7, 2017 03:12

Chichevache: Feb 17, 2010; One of the funniest posters in GIP.

Just not intentionally.

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

Are there any recorded cases of something like battlefield PTSD surviving from ancient sources? Dan Carlin kinda touches on that in his persian wars podcast episodes but he's not a historian.

I can't recall the source, but I believe it was a Greek soldier who went suddenly blind at the onset, or maybe during, an ancient battle. Apparently stress induced blindness is a thing. :shrug:

I finally started watching Band of Brothers and it was shown there as well.

FOUND IT!

https://rogueclassicism.com/2009/07/29/marathon-post-traumatic-stress-disorder/

quote:

There fell in this battle of Marathon, on the side of the barbarians,
about six thousand and four hundred men; on that of the Athenians,
one hundred and ninety-two. Such was the number of the slain on the
one side and the other. A strange prodigy likewise happened at this
fight. Epizelus, the son of Cuphagoras, an Athenian, was in the thick
of the fray, and behaving himself as a brave man should, when suddenly
he was stricken with blindness, without blow of sword or dart; and
this blindness continued thenceforth during the whole of his after
life. The following is the account which he himself, as I have heard,
gave of the matter: he said that a gigantic warrior, with a huge beard,
which shaded all his shield, stood over against him; but the ghostly
semblance passed him by, and slew the man at his side. Such, as I
understand, was the tale which Epizelus told.

# ? Apr 7, 2017 04:13

Dalael: Oct 14, 2014; Hello. Yep, I still think Atlantis is Bolivia, yep, I'm still a giant idiot, yep, I'm still a huge racist. Some things never change!

Grand Fromage posted:

Yeah these parts are interesting. It's a stretch, there's no evidence of the Xia existing at all though so anything about them is a stretch. I not-so-secretly enjoy anyone poking at the conventional narratives of Chinese historiography though since it's so bad.

It's easy to think that way but there's nowhere in the world that's completely excavated! We still find stuff all the time even in places like Rome and Athens, and space archaeology has changed everything because it's turning up literal thousands of completely unknown new sites all over the place.

If I had to do over again I would have gotten into space archaeology, it wasn't a thing yet when I was in college and it's the most exciting field now. That or stuff in the Americas, which I had no interest in at the time because I grew up in the US and don't really find the native history there exciting. But you go down to Mesoamerica or South America and there are huge cool empires and stuff, and that field is exploding right now so whoops.

Speaking of new finds:

Ucetia has been found

quote:

For the first time in over a thousand years, archeologists have laid eyes on the ancient Roman town of Ucetia, which is decked out with some surprisingly well-preserved mosaics.

The discovery by the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) was made near modern-day Uz�s in the south of France during the construction of a school. The 4,000-square-meter (43,056-square-foot) site contains artifacts ranging from the Roman Republic era (1st century BCE) to the late antiquity (7th century), right through to the Middle Ages.

The town�s existence was first hinted at when researchers found an inscription saying Ucetia on a stone slab in nearby N�mes. A few isolated fragments and mosaic pieces suggested the site of the mysterious Roman town, but it remained hidden until INRAP started to dig beneath the surface.

�Prior to our work, we knew that there had been a Roman city called Ucetia only because its name was mentioned on stela [inscripted stone slab] in Nimes, alongside 11 other names of Roman towns in the area,� Philippe Cayn of INRAP told IBTimes.

One of the main findings was a 250-square-meter (2,690-square-foot) area that the researchers believe was a public building, based on the fact it was once lined with grand columns. This building also features two large multi-colored mosaics with patterns, symbols, and animals, including an owl, duck, eagle, and fawn. Preliminary research says this building stood strong until the end of the 1st century CE.

Cayn added: "This kind of elaborate mosaic pavement is often found in the Roman world in the 1st and 2nd centuries, but this one dates back to about 200 years before that, so this is surprising."

Another important discovery was a 500-square-meter (5,381-square-foot) urban dwelling, which contains mosaic decorations of geometrical patterns and dolphins. This building also contains several large dolia, large wine vessels, that suggests wine was produced here.

The archeologists believe there is still a lot of work to do and hope to continue their research on the site over the coming years. The site will be part of a peer-reviewed study once all the necessary groundwork is done and dusted.

See article for mosaic pictures.

# ? Apr 7, 2017 19:07

BravestOfTheLamps: Oct 12, 2012; by FactsAreUseless; Lipstick Apathy

Dalael posted:

Speaking of new finds:

Ucetia has been found

See article for mosaic pictures.

Sweet.

# ? Apr 7, 2017 19:44

fantastic in plastic: Jun 15, 2007; The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

Are there any recorded cases of something like battlefield PTSD surviving from ancient sources? Dan Carlin kinda touches on that in his persian wars podcast episodes but he's not a historian.

Sophocles' play Ajax depicts something like PTSD. It's not a clinical discussion or a case history, of course, but at the very least I think you can say that ancient Athenians would recognize the idea of soldiers traumatized by war.

# ? Apr 8, 2017 02:12

Chichevache: Feb 17, 2010; One of the funniest posters in GIP.

Just not intentionally.

fantastic in plastic posted:

Sophocles' play Ajax depicts something like PTSD. It's not a clinical discussion or a case history, of course, but at the very least I think you can say that ancient Athenians would recognize the idea of soldiers traumatized by war.

Ajax depicts a bad rear end doing bad rear end things and being an ubermensch who rejects the gods. :black101:

it is my favorite tragedy

# ? Apr 8, 2017 02:35

Jerusalem: May 20, 2004; Would you be my new best friends?

Dalael posted:

Ucetia has been found

I can't wait to see those mosaics cleaned up :swoon:

# ? Apr 9, 2017 04:38

Edgar Allen Ho: Apr 3, 2017; by sebmojo

Jerusalem posted:

I can't wait to see those mosaics cleaned up

I'd kill to go back to an ancient town at its height and see how all the art and architecture looked in its original state. Check out fully decced-out pyramids and see how those cartoon-colour marble statues really looked.

# ? Apr 10, 2017 15:44

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

I'd kill to go back to an ancient town at its height and see how all the art and architecture looked in its original state. Check out fully decced-out pyramids and see how those cartoon-colour marble statues really looked.

They'd be covered in phallic graffiti.

# ? Apr 10, 2017 20:47

cheetah7071: Oct 20, 2010; honk honk; College Slice

I wonder if they used the super tacky bright colors because they actually liked them, or if it was because those paints were the easiest/cheapest to produce with the technology of the time

# ? Apr 10, 2017 20:52

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Could also be that all the dust and stuff kicked up on the outdoor statues would naturally mute the colors a lot after the statue'd been up for a few months. So if you start with very vibrant colors, it'll look better all dusted over.

# ? Apr 10, 2017 21:09

P-Mack: Nov 10, 2007

Or maybe those were just base coats and there was something else layered on top.

# ? Apr 10, 2017 21:10

Dalael: Oct 14, 2014; Hello. Yep, I still think Atlantis is Bolivia, yep, I'm still a giant idiot, yep, I'm still a huge racist. Some things never change!

Ancient Native American settlement found

quote:

The ancient stories of the indigenous Heiltsuk Nation people say that their ancestors sheltered on a mysterious strip of coastline in Canada during the last Ice Age. Thanks to a recent discovery of a 14,000-year-old settlement, science is now confirming those claims.

The discovery was made last year along the Central Coast of British Columbia on Triquet Island, CBC News reports. Teams of archaeologists from the Hakai Institute, University of Victoria, and local First Nations found the remains of charcoal, tools, fish hooks, spears used to hunt marine mammals, and even a hand drill used for lighting fires.

Based on the analysis of charcoal found, it�s estimated the settlement was established around 13,613 to 14,086 years ago. This makes it one of the oldest human settlements in North America. It also means it's twice as old as the invention of the wheel, three times older than the Pyramids of Giza, and thousands of years before all of the ice age megafauna went extinct.

There is also evidence to suggest that the sea-level around Triquet Island has remained remarkably stable for 15,000 years throughout the end of the last Ice Age. This again confirms that this area acted as a haven of stability over the millennia, just as the Heiltsuk Nation have said all along.

The real importance of the finding lies in explaining how early North Americans migrated to British Columbia. One theory says that humans came from Asia and traversed across a bridge of land and ice that connects Russia to Alaska.

The other theory is that humans traveled by boat. While it is often thought that early humans would not have had the supplies to walk from Asia to Alaska, the alternative theory was also dispelled as it was always assumed the whole coast would have been impassable during the Ice Age. That, however, is obviously not the case.

Now, armed with this knowledge, indigenous First Nation groups say they feel that they now have more credence and validity when entering the often heated battles for land rights.

"When we do go into negotiations, our oral history is what we go to the table with," William Housty, a member of the Heiltsuk Nation, told CBC News. "So now we don't just have oral history, we have this archaeological information. It's not just an arbitrary thing that anyone's making up... We have a history supported from Western science and archaeology."

# ? Apr 10, 2017 21:12

skasion: Feb 13, 2012; Why don't you perform zazen, facing a wall?

cheetah7071 posted:

I wonder if they used the super tacky bright colors because they actually liked them, or if it was because those paints were the easiest/cheapest to produce with the technology of the time

We frankly don't know that they did. It's clear that statues were to some extent painted (or gilded, or decorated in other ways) but the notion that they were all painted in the same sorts of super bright flat color has limited basis in reality. We're talking about centuries of artists each working in their own way here, but the only visual representation of it that we have are the results of some guy analyzing the scraps of pigment that still remain nearly 2000 years later and attempting to extrapolate that to the whole artwork.

# ? Apr 10, 2017 21:21

Jerusalem: May 20, 2004; Would you be my new best friends?

Dalael posted:

Ancient Native American settlement found

This also rules. 14,000 years ago is crazy to think about (on a human scale at least).

# ? Apr 11, 2017 12:48

Edgar Allen Ho: Apr 3, 2017; by sebmojo

skasion posted:

We frankly don't know that they did. It's clear that statues were to some extent painted (or gilded, or decorated in other ways) but the notion that they were all painted in the same sorts of super bright flat color has limited basis in reality. We're talking about centuries of artists each working in their own way here, but the only visual representation of it that we have are the results of some guy analyzing the scraps of pigment that still remain nearly 2000 years later and attempting to extrapolate that to the whole artwork.

Is there much we can do to look into this farther with the current level of technology?

Jerusalem posted:

This also rules. 14,000 years ago is crazy to think about (on a human scale at least).

And some of the history has survived orally? It's hard to imagine by today's standards of recording but if reciting it is all you have then I can see it happening. Kinda depressing to imagine how much history has been lost because oral-tradition societies were either killed off or assimilated without anyone bothering to write down what was being lost.

# ? Apr 11, 2017 15:20

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

skasion posted:

We frankly don't know that they did. It's clear that statues were to some extent painted (or gilded, or decorated in other ways) but the notion that they were all painted in the same sorts of super bright flat color has limited basis in reality. We're talking about centuries of artists each working in their own way here, but the only visual representation of it that we have are the results of some guy analyzing the scraps of pigment that still remain nearly 2000 years later and attempting to extrapolate that to the whole artwork.

All (scant, most the work of "some guy" with UV) evidence points to those bright, flat colors in Greek sculpture. Plato assumes statues are painted. The Parthenon was probably entirely painted, even the non-figurative bits.Tombstones were also painted, and it's more than Brinkmann saying that. Roman copies of Greek bronze/marble originals are a big question mark because even then the originals might have been white by the time the Romans were copying them, but the Roman sculpture of Roman stuff, as well as Roman wall painting, is more naturalistic.

# ? Apr 11, 2017 18:33

Koramei: Nov 11, 2011; I have three regrets
The first is to be born in Joseon.

cheetah7071 posted:

I wonder if they used the super tacky bright colors because they actually liked them, or if it was because those paints were the easiest/cheapest to produce with the technology of the time

Bright colors have only been the cheapest to produce very recently, and for that matter our perception of them being tacky and more muted colors looking fancier is probably not something they'd have shared.

Also I mentioned this last time this came up and someone pointed out that (I think on the Parthenon?) there was evidence for them regularly touching the paint up so it wouldn't have always been the case, but colors fade pretty fast when they're in the sun constantly, so even dust aside in a lot of instances they wouldn't have been bright for all that long.

Koramei fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Apr 11, 2017

# ? Apr 11, 2017 19:40

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Modern vinyl siding starts fading with a few years. Ancient painted sculptures and buildings were probably a mix of freshly painted, touched up, and delinquincy.

# ? Apr 12, 2017 00:13

CommonShore: Jun 6, 2014; A true renaissance man

Koramei posted:

Bright colors have only been the cheapest to produce very recently, and for that matter our perception of them being tacky and more muted colors looking fancier is probably not something they'd have shared.

Also I mentioned this last time this came up and someone pointed out that (I think on the Parthenon?) there was evidence for them regularly touching the paint up so it wouldn't have always been the case, but colors fade pretty fast when they're in the sun constantly, so even dust aside in a lot of instances they wouldn't have been bright for all that long.

And the preference for understated colours and form in Western art probably owes more than a little to the unpainted marble of ancient Greco-Roman statues

# ? Apr 12, 2017 03:48

Squalid: Nov 4, 2008

I was browsing a collection on Tang Dynasty poetry and thought this thread might enjoy a couple:

Du Fu: Song of the Wagons circa 750 AD posted:

The wagons rumble and roll,
The horses whinny and neigh,
The conscripts each have bows and arrows at their waists.
Their parents, wives and children run to see them off,
So much dust's stirred up, it hides the Xianyang bridge.
They pull clothes, stamp their feet and, weeping, bar the way,
The weeping voices rise straight up and strike the clouds.

A passer-by at the roadside asks a conscript why,
The conscript answers only that drafting happens often.
"At fifteen, many were sent north to guard the river,
Even at forty, they had to till fields in the west.
When we went away, the elders bound our heads,
Returning with heads white, we're sent back off to the frontier.
At the border posts, shed blood becomes a sea,
The martial emperor's dream of expansion has no end.

Have you not seen the two hundred districts east of the mountains,
Where thorns and brambles grow in countless villages and hamlets?
Although there are strong women to grasp the hoe and the plough,
They grow some crops, but there's no order in the fields.
What's more, we soldiers of Qin withstand the bitterest fighting,
We're always driven onwards just like dogs and chickens.

Although an elder can ask me this,
How can a soldier dare to complain?
Even in this winter time,
Soldiers from west of the pass keep moving.
The magistrate is eager for taxes,
But how can we afford to pay?

We know now having boys is bad,
While having girls is for the best;
Our girls can still be married to the neighbours,
Our sons are merely buried amid the grass.
Have you not seen on the border of Qinghai,
The ancient bleached bones no man's gathered in?
The new ghosts are angered by injustice, the old ghosts weep,
Moistening rain falls from dark heaven on the voices' screeching."

Li Bai: Waking From Drunkenness on a Spring Day posted:

Life in the world is but a big dream;
I will not spoil it by any labour or care.
So saying, I was drunk all the day,
lying helpless at the porch in front of my door.

When I awoke, I blinked at the garden-lawn;
a lonely bird was singing amid the flowers.
I asked myself, had the day been wet or fine?
The Spring wind was telling the mango-bird.

Moved by its song I soon began to sigh,
and, as wine was there, I filled my own cup.
Wildly singing I waited for the moon to rise;
when my song was over, all my senses had gone.

Drunkenness is an oft repeated theme, I think it has to do with Daoist rejection of worldy ambitions or some such sentiment. Du Fu has another poem with the wonderfully evocative name Many People Come to Visit and Bring Wine After I Fell Off My Horse, Drunk

# ? Apr 12, 2017 05:08

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Squalid posted:

Many People Come to Visit and Bring Wine After I Fell Off My Horse, Drunk

# ? Apr 12, 2017 05:17

FAUXTON: Jun 2, 2005; spero che tu stia bene

Du Fu has a bright future in Nashville with that kind of storytelling.

# ? Apr 12, 2017 06:22

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

I was listening to a radio 4 show about colour a few years ago (truely the best radio station for good but random stuff) and they were talking about the growth in chemical knowledge in the victorian era lead to a boom in brightly coloured clothes, stuff we would consider outright garish today, being highly fashionable for the upper classes. Especially while it was new and expensive. Then as things became cheaper it became fashionable to the middle classes and then avaliable to lower classes the upper classes moved to more modest colours we would choose today.

This also apprently applied to home decoration. High class parties at this time must have made psychedelic acid trips look dull

# ? Apr 12, 2017 10:55

Kemper Boyd: Aug 6, 2007; no kings, no gods, no masters but a comfy chair and no socks

Back in the sixties and seventies garish colors like orange were fashionable. Shifts happen faster than one would think.

# ? Apr 12, 2017 14:50

Deteriorata: Feb 6, 2005

Kemper Boyd posted:

Back in the sixties and seventies garish colors like orange were fashionable. Shifts happen faster than one would think.

Well, it was a big deal in the 19th century because it was the first time synthetic dyes were available. After millennia of bright colors being affordable only by the wealthy, suddenly almost everyone could have them. People bought all sorts of gaudily-colored fabrics because it was possible for the first time.

The difference was coal tar. Industrialization was producing by the ton, and most of it just got dumped. Organic chemistry took off in that century due to it being freely available and such a rich feed stock for all sorts of chemical processes. Aniline dyes were the first big consumer product from it.

# ? Apr 12, 2017 14:54

Safety Biscuits: Oct 21, 2010

Squalid posted:

I was browsing a collection on Tang Dynasty poetry and thought this thread might enjoy a couple:

Du Fu owns. Here's one I like:

Looming rain and reckless wind, an indiscriminate
ruins of autumn. The four seasons and eight horizons all

gathered into one cloud - you can't tell an ox coming
from a horse going, or the muddy Ching from clear Wei.

Wheat-ears are sprouting on the stalk, and millet-
clusters turn black. Nothing arrives from farmers,

not even news. Here in the city, quilts bring
one handful of rice. No one mentions old bargains.

# ? Apr 12, 2017 18:00

Pontius Pilate: Jul 25, 2006; Crucify, Whale, Crucify

Visiting Mt Vernon or Monticello let alone places such as Versailles quickly reveals that the wealthy of the past weren't very much into understated design.

And hell "money doesn't buy taste" and its variations are still sayings for a reason. McMansions and chromed out Escalades and their ilk are eternal.

# ? Apr 12, 2017 20:25

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Jello was a similar high end fad that went downscale as it got cheaper. I think there's a website called the 'gallery of regrettable food' with some great pictures.

# ? Apr 12, 2017 21:03

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# ? May 27, 2024 07:39

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Tunicate posted:

Jello was a similar high end fad that went downscale as it got cheaper. I think there's a website called the 'gallery of regrettable food' with some great pictures.

Jell-O was always cheap, what made it popular was that they'd perfected the process to make preparing it far easier than it had been to prepare gelatin-based stuff at home.

# ? Apr 12, 2017 21:14

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