Roman/ancient history: Checkmate, Atenists

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Edgar Allen Ho: Apr 3, 2017; by sebmojo

Something about Caracalla�s bust or the colourization makes him look a lot more real, to my eyes anyway.

# ? Mar 23, 2019 02:03

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# ? May 30, 2024 16:49

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

It's because caesar decided to preemt k-fashion by 2000 years and gave some circle lenses a go

# ? Mar 23, 2019 02:07

Vincent Van Goatse: Nov 8, 2006; Enjoy every sandwich.; Smellrose

I didn't know Julius Caesar was a direct ancestor of Jonathan Pryce.

# ? Mar 23, 2019 02:10

Milo and POTUS: Sep 3, 2017; I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?

Stringent posted:

https://twitter.com/PersianRose1/status/881330662321655808

When you hear someone open the door and just freeze

# ? Mar 23, 2019 03:06

Scarodactyl: Oct 22, 2015

King of False Promises posted:

The same artist who did the Nero sculpture did a few others, too. Here's Caesar:

I preferred his earlier draft

# ? Mar 23, 2019 04:05

CommonShore: Jun 6, 2014; A true renaissance man

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

I didn't know Julius Caesar was a direct ancestor of Jonathan Pryce.

I had the same thought

# ? Mar 23, 2019 04:07

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!

Fresh water location most likely to be strongest component of determining the location of ahu and moai

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/scientists-think-theyve-solved-one-mystery-of-easter-islands-statues/

quote:

Chile's Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is famous for its giant monumental statues, called moai, built by early inhabitants some 800 years ago. The islanders likely chose the statues' locations based on the availability of fresh water sources, according to a recent paper in PLOS One.

Scholars have puzzled over the moai on Easter Island for decades, pondering their cultural significance, as well as how a Stone Age culture managed to carve and transport statues weighing as much as 92 tons. They were typically mounted on platforms called ahu. According to co-author Carl Lipo, an anthropologist at Binghamton University, you can have ahu (platforms) without moai (statues) and moai without ahu, usually along the roads leading to ahu; they were likely being transported and never got to their destination.

Back in 2012, Lipo and his colleague, Terry Hunt of the University of Arizona, showed that you could transport a ten-foot, five-ton moai a few hundred yards with just 18 people and three strong ropes by employing a rocking motion. Last year Lipo proposed an intriguing hypothesis for how the islanders placed red hats on top of some moai; those can weigh up to 13 tons. He suggested the inhabitants used ropes to roll the hats up a ramp.

Now Lipo, Hunt, and several colleagues have turned their attention to the question of why certain locations were chosen for the statues and platforms. If their purpose was symbolic or ritualistic, one would expect them to be placed prominently, on hilltops, for instance, where everyone could see them. But instead they're located along the coast, and they're not evenly distributed. Over his 20+ years of field work, Lipo noticed there were places that he felt should have been ideal locations for ahu, yet there weren't any at those sites. Clearly there was some other reason the early islanders chose particular sites for these monuments.

While working in Hawaii with a hydrogeologist, Lipo realized that fresh water is such a precious resource on an island, it can't help but have an impact on where people settle�and where they might place their statuary. The volcanic islands of Hawaii have an unusual feature, where fresh water flows down through the volcanic tubes into the ocean. "There's actually places offshore where freshwater will be flowing," said Lipo. "Fishermen will know you could scoop water right from this spot in the ocean and it will be fresh."

Fresh water is also a limited resource on Easter Island. With his graduate student, co-author Tonya Broadman, Lipo decided to investigate whether the same thing might be happening there and discovered it was, based on the conductivity measurements they made of how salty the water was along the coasts. "At low tide, when the saltwater's down, fresh water pours right out at the coast," he said.

Evidence from historical accounts of European visitors to the island verified this was also true at the time the early inhabitants lived.

Lipo and Broadman meticulously mapped out where those fresh water sources were located all around the island, and wherever they found fresh water pockets along the coast, they also found ahu. (Fresh water also pools in craters on the island, forming lakes, but the archaeological evidence didn't support houses and villages in those areas.) They used a technique called quantitative spatial modeling to demonstrate that the pattern they observed was statistically sound, not just a matter of human perception.

They also applied their model to other natural resources to further test the hypothesis. "It's complicated, because everything is located near the coast, so we wondered, is just being near the coast the predictor?" said Lipo. But based on their statistical analysis, "the fresh water location is the strongest component of determining the location of ahu and moai, more so than any of the other factors."

"Many researchers, ourselves included, have long speculated associations between ahu/moai and different kinds of resources, [such as] water, agricultural land, areas with good marine resources, etc.," said co-author Robert DiNapoli of the University of Oregon. "However, these associations had never been quantitatively tested or shown to be statistically significant. Our study presents quantitative spatial modeling clearly showing that ahu are associated with freshwater sources in a way that they aren't associated with other resources."

According to co-author Hunt, the data collected thus far indicates that the early inhabitants of the island survived for more than 500 years by building strong communities around their limited resources and fostering a strong sharing economy. It was the arrival of European colonialists that disrupted their way of life and contributed to their social collapse. Lipo and his team are heading back to Easter Island in May for more field work, since thus far they have only collected comprehensive freshwater data for the western portion of the island. A complete survey will hopefully shed even more light on why the inhabitants of Rapa Nui invested so much time and effort into building the ahu and moai.

"We may never get a [definitive] answer, because people had a lot of reasons for making statues," said Lipo. "It seems counter-intuitive to us. But once we start to see the constraints of the resources, we start to see that communities are tied to those local resources. The people survived by cooperation, and the statues served to mark their communities."

# ? Mar 25, 2019 14:29

Alikchi: Aug 18, 2010; Thumbs up I agree

Hi, weird random question, but do you all know of any good fair use Late Antiquity music? Roman, "barbarian", whatever. As authentic as possible given what we know. Does that even exist?

# ? Mar 25, 2019 17:33

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Alikchi posted:

Hi, weird random question, but do you all know of any good fair use Late Antiquity music? Roman, "barbarian", whatever. As authentic as possible given what we know. Does that even exist?

The first thing that comes to mind is the music for the Rome Total War mod Europa Barbarorum, which was very focused on authenticity and had a full soundtrack developed for it. Navigating fair use can be tricky, but it's an old freely available mod so I would imagine that it would be a good candidate for whatever you're doing. They have samples here, with the full tracks embedded in the complete mod download. https://www.europabarbarorum.com/EB1/downloads_music.html

Oh sad those links are dead. Try this sample on YouTube: https://youtu.be/83anJ5L-2lw

Kaal fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Mar 25, 2019

# ? Mar 25, 2019 21:12

Alikchi: Aug 18, 2010; Thumbs up I agree

I found this playlist:

Late Antiquity to Early Renaissance https://open.spotify.com/user/noehernandez767/playlist/1fAtDQH8kDqlsMP33XCs57?si=M0VnjCn-RqKv5b8ZQ1-ZKg

Seems to be pretty good. No barbarian stuff though. And nothing from before 500 which is what I want most, 400-476.

# ? Mar 26, 2019 02:45

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Alikchi posted:

I found this playlist:

Late Antiquity to Early Renaissance https://open.spotify.com/user/noehernandez767/playlist/1fAtDQH8kDqlsMP33XCs57?si=M0VnjCn-RqKv5b8ZQ1-ZKg

Seems to be pretty good. No barbarian stuff though. And nothing from before 500 which is what I want most, 400-476.

Here's the Te Deum, which is actually a 4th century hymn, not 5th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqwV9l-U8ds

More generally, the first four Ambrosian Hymns are generally considered to be written by Ambrose himself in the 4th century, and the rest of them are also probably 4th or 5th century.

# ? Mar 26, 2019 03:41

Alikchi: Aug 18, 2010; Thumbs up I agree

Oh excellent, thank you.

# ? Mar 26, 2019 04:33

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

Fuschia tude posted:

I know it's been a few pages since the Nero reconstructed face, but your avatar reminded me of this image I ran into recently. An artist painted over this bust of Caracalla with their idea of what the colors would have looked like.

I think that�s very good. Maybe not garish enough

# ? Mar 29, 2019 00:11

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

Anyone have any book recommendations for China in the period between the fall of the Han and the Sui/Tang reunification? I'm realizing it's kind of a black hole in my understanding of the place. Even for the Cambridge History series, that period is one of like 2 books that they still haven't gotten around to after like 60 years.

# ? Mar 29, 2019 02:17

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Fuschia tude posted:

I know it's been a few pages since the Nero reconstructed face, but your avatar reminded me of this image I ran into recently. An artist painted over this bust of Caracalla with their idea of what the colors would have looked like.

Oh what do you know, Oberyn Martell was a real person.

# ? Mar 29, 2019 02:49

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?

Preface by saying I haven't read it yet, but the book I got on that period that was recommended the most was China Between Empires by Mark Edward Lewis.

# ? Mar 29, 2019 02:54

Kangxi: Nov 12, 2016; "Too paranoid for you?"
"Not me, paranoia's the garlic in life's kitchen, right, you can never have too much."

Koramei posted:

Anyone have any book recommendations for China in the period between the fall of the Han and the Sui/Tang reunification? I'm realizing it's kind of a black hole in my understanding of the place. Even for the Cambridge History series, that period is one of like 2 books that they still haven't gotten around to after like 60 years.

If we're sticking with English language introductory books I'd also start with China Between Empires. It doesn't limit itself to military or political history and includes a brief discussion of the social and economic changes of the period. The Cambridge History of China might finally publish their second book on the period this year, and the last volume on the Sui and Tang is due out 2020!

Is there anything you're looking for in particular - something on the Three Kingdoms period, the Jin dynasty, the Northern and Southern dynasties?

# ? Mar 29, 2019 04:43

Squalid: Nov 4, 2008

Are there any like, fun pop histories about specific medieval or ancient Chinese periods or people? Something not too dense, maybe beach reading style? Or are there any entertaining classical histories? I admit I found most of the ancient Chinese prose I've read really boring compared to Greek and Roman authors. I mean its hard to beat Caesar on that front when he's all like "and when my men's courage wavered I grabbed a shield and charged the enemy alone, catching a million arrows on my shield, until the soldiers were shamed into following me," but I feel like a lot of Chinese authors don't even try. Most of what they right is like in a super tedious and impersonal courtly style.

# ? Mar 29, 2019 08:18

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?

I haven't found much for older China. You're right about the primary sources, they're basically all court histories written well after the fact and there's nothing like Caesar or Tacitus' writing. It's not an ancient subject at all but God's Chinese Son and Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom were both really good books on the Taping Rebellion.

# ? Mar 29, 2019 14:46

ThatBasqueGuy: Feb 14, 2013; someone introduce jojo to lazyb

Grand Fromage posted:

I haven't found much for older China. You're right about the primary sources, they're basically all court histories written well after the fact and there's nothing like Caesar or Tacitus' writing. It's not an ancient subject at all but God's Chinese Son and Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom were both really good books on the Taping Rebellion.

Would second both these books, picked them up years ago after a similar recommendation and the topics stuck with me ever since.

# ? Mar 29, 2019 14:52

Kangxi: Nov 12, 2016; "Too paranoid for you?"
"Not me, paranoia's the garlic in life's kitchen, right, you can never have too much."

Unfortunately, the pop history stuff about the early dynasties all tends to be either in Chinese or Japanese :v:

I mean some of these dynastic histories in Chinese history are not translated at all either. The chronicle of the three kingdoms (San guo zhi), the Book of Han (Han shu), and the Book of the Later Han (Hou han shu) do not have a complete translation into English. The Commentaries of Zuo have only one complete English translation and that was written in the 19th century. The Zizhi Tongjian has never been fully translated into English, although people like Rafe de Crespigny and Achilles Fang have each done translations of specific chapters. The structure of these court histories is also different - it's not presented as a single continuous narrative like Thucydides, but a collection of biographies with analysis and commentary. Military history is sometimes neglected, often to the point of listing only places and dates for battles.

Burton Watson did a great partial translation of some of the interesting bits of Sima Qian's book. Somebody named Nienhauser is doing a complete annotated edition of Sima Qian but that's in nine volumes and probably priced way too high for the average reader. Graff wrote a history of "medieval" warfare (between 300-900) which is more dense and political but it's something a more dedicated student can approach.

I'm seconding the books on the Taiping, and I'd also recommend Ray Huang's book 1587: A Year of No Significance if you want an interesting introduction to the Ming. It's history through several chapter-length biographies of figures in the late Ming. For the three kingdoms period, you may want to try Rafe de Crespigny's books. His biography of Cao Cao and history of the later Han would be something meaty to start off with. Read the previews or whatever you can find on Google Books and see what's good.

Kangxi fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Mar 30, 2019

# ? Mar 29, 2019 20:44

The North Tower: Aug 20, 2007; You should throw it in the ocean.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a history of Zoroastrianism or Jainism? I've picked up a lot of history about Christianity/Islam/Judaism/Hinduism/Buddhism in the past and was interested in learning about some of the next tier (by population). Any other suggestions for religions that don't get as much media?

# ? Mar 29, 2019 21:03

Squalid: Nov 4, 2008

biographies are a pretty good way to introduce yourself to new periods, imo. One unfortunate characteristic I've noticed in Chinese secondary histories is that they get infected by the ghastly courtly annals style of the old authors, absorbing that tendency towards endless lists of the schemes of a billion officials each of whom may only be mentioned once and never again.

I just wish we had a Chinese Livy to tell us who were the greatest whores of Chang'an. Oh well, I've been meaning to check out Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom for a while so I'll probably read that. Maybe I'll just get drunk, read my Du Fu collection and cry for the absence of the Chinese narrative history tradition that never was but should have been

Squalid fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Mar 30, 2019

# ? Mar 30, 2019 00:28

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

Philosophy not history, and I haven't read it directly, but all the excerpts from the Zhuangzi I've found have been great:

quote:

Zhuangzi and Huizi were enjoying themselves on the bridge over the Hao River. Zhuangzi said, "The minnows are darting about free and easy! This is how fish are happy." Huizi replied, "You are not a fish. How do you know that the fish are happy?" Zhuangzi said. "You are not I. How do you know that I do not know that the fish are happy?" Huizi said, "I am not you, to be sure, so of course I don't know about you. But you are obviously not a fish; so the case is complete that you do not know that the fish are happy." Zhuangzi said, "Let's go back to the beginning of this. You said, How do you know that the fish are happy; but in asking me this, you already knew that I know it. I know it right here above the Hao."

Kangxi posted:

Is there anything you're looking for in particular - something on the Three Kingdoms period, the Jin dynasty, the Northern and Southern dynasties?

I guess most of all I'm curious about Jin's collapse/the barbarian incursions and the 16 Kingdoms period, but I'd be open to anything.
That said, cool that that Cambridge history is coming out in literally less than a year now; I'll read China Between Empires (thanks for the recommendation guys) but I guess past that I can just wait a bit longer before delving in deeper.

Koramei fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Mar 30, 2019

# ? Mar 30, 2019 00:55

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

The entirety of Zhuangzi is awesome, probably incomparable to anything in the antique western philosophical tradition � the skepticism verging on mysticism and the trolling attitude are of reminiscent of say Heraclitus, Diogenes, Pyrrho, but those guys are only fragments and aphorisms and anecdotes, whereas Zhuangzi is a whole book plus a bunch of later texts in the same tradition. I recommend Ziporyn�s English version; it doesn�t translate all the later chapters sadly (though it does have the one by the butthurt anarchoprimitivist who thinks things like �knowledge� and �leaving your hometown� are the reason why everything sucks so much nowadays), but does a great job of making clear what the book is actually talking about, and you�re going to need that when you run into lines like

quote:

To use an attribute to show that attributes are not attributes is not as good as using a non-attribute to show that attributes are not attributes. To use a horse to show that a horse is not a horse is not as good as using a non-horse to show that a horse is not a horse. Heaven and earth are one attribute; the ten thousand things are one horse.

# ? Mar 30, 2019 01:29

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?

Zhuangzi would be an insufferable poster.

# ? Mar 30, 2019 01:31

Tias: May 25, 2008; Pictured: the patron saint of internet political arguments (probably)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Forsooth, a good deal of his spirit lives in these immortal similisexual forumae

# ? Mar 30, 2019 01:52

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

In the middle of the night, the skull came to him in his dream and said, �im gay�

# ? Mar 30, 2019 01:56

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

Koramei posted:

Anyone have any book recommendations for China in the period between the fall of the Han and the Sui/Tang reunification? I'm realizing it's kind of a black hole in my understanding of the place. Even for the Cambridge History series, that period is one of like 2 books that they still haven't gotten around to after like 60 years.

Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity.

It's a collection of articles intended to be approachable to the lay reader, with a focus on dismissing a lot of fusty, cobwebbed ideas that people still hold on the period. As the title suggests, it is not exclusively about China (although it's a main focus) but it has a lot of really interesting stuff on the 'barbarian' states that colonized the northern plains during this period and the ways that traditional narratives of their 'sinicization' are insufficient and frequently misleading. V good poo poo

# ? Mar 31, 2019 18:01

A human heart: Oct 10, 2012

hello, i just read this book called The Golden Rhinoceros by Fran�ois-Xavier Fauvelle which is all about the African middle ages and it is very fascinating, can you guys recommend anything else on the same general topic? I am particularly interested in Madagascar if there is anything about them since they're only very briefly mentioned in the book.

# ? Apr 1, 2019 10:17

Grevling: Dec 18, 2016

https://twitter.com/sentantiq/status/1112450503701659649

# ? Apr 1, 2019 13:30

Milo and POTUS: Sep 3, 2017; I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?

They truly were ahead of their time

# ? Apr 1, 2019 14:11

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

https://twitter.com/BLMedieval/status/1112659831268261888

# ? Apr 1, 2019 21:33

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

HEY GUNS posted:

https://twitter.com/BLMedieval/status/1112659831268261888

This is an April Fools joke, right?

A rather lame one, if so; it's not dramatic or silly enough.

Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Apr 1, 2019

# ? Apr 1, 2019 21:40

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Silver2195 posted:

This is an April Fools joke, right?

A rather lame one, if so; it's not dramatic or silly enough.

It has to be; Aristotle died in 322 BC.

# ? Apr 1, 2019 21:45

Kangxi: Nov 12, 2016; "Too paranoid for you?"
"Not me, paranoia's the garlic in life's kitchen, right, you can never have too much."

Koramei posted:

I guess most of all I'm curious about Jin's collapse/the barbarian incursions and the 16 Kingdoms period, but I'd be open to anything.
That said, cool that that Cambridge history is coming out in literally less than a year now; I'll read China Between Empires (thanks for the recommendation guys) but I guess past that I can just wait a bit longer before delving in deeper.

I liked Medieval Chinese Warfare: 300-900 by David Graff, although it has a lot about technology, society, and politics to make up for some of the more threadbare primary sources about war.

# ? Apr 1, 2019 21:53

Grand Prize Winner: Feb 19, 2007

April wasn't even invented yet, was it? What the hell kind of calendar did the Greeks use at the time anyway?

# ? Apr 1, 2019 22:47

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?

Grand Prize Winner posted:

April wasn't even invented yet, was it? What the hell kind of calendar did the Greeks use at the time anyway?

Our calendar is essentially the Roman calendar at the time of Augustus Caesar. It's been shifted around because of seasonal drift, but the structure is the same. The names of the months are all Roman, though the origins of February, April, May, and June are debated. The rest are certain: Janus, Mars, Julius (Caesar), Augustus, Seventh/Eighth/Ninth/Tenth Month. Names in English are mostly Germanic deity equivalents to the Roman names, though we still have Saturn's Day. The original Roman calendar did not have January or February, just a 60 day winter period which was not considered part of the year. So April would have always been in the Roman calendar, but it was the second month of the year.

The Greeks are, as usual, complicated. There was a different calendar depending on which polis you were in. The majority had twelve months. There's a lot of debate about how they worked because the evidence is patchy and mostly comes from Delphi records.

# ? Apr 1, 2019 23:01

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Can someone reccommend books on the Silk Road for kids? My sister's oldest has developed an interest

# ? Apr 3, 2019 19:03

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# ? May 30, 2024 16:49

ughhhh: Oct 17, 2012

HEY GUNS posted:

Can someone reccommend books on the Silk Road for kids? My sister's oldest has developed an interest

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bride%27s_Story

# ? Apr 3, 2019 20:30

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Roman/ancient history: Checkmate, Atenists

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