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A good experiment would be to take period paints and tools, then ask an artist to give it their absolute best. But it could very well be that what we think of as flat and gaudy was pure and beautiful by ancient standards.
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Jun 23, 2020 09:19
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I am new to this thread, I'd just like to say how glad I am out exists and how OF COURSE it exists on this beautiful dead comedy forum.Cessna posted:The frescoes from Pompeii seem to show plenty of color: I've been to this villa while they were restoring it and the girl being groomed in the dining room is one of the most beautiful beings I have ever seen. The shapes are completely intact, the colors have been boosted by restoration but they aren't way off what they original were. So they could do amazing things with frescoes, chances are they weren't entirely terrible with statues.
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Jun 23, 2020 22:28
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Victory!
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Jun 26, 2020 07:52
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Speaking of owning old things, does anyone have any reproduction pottery in daily use? I wouldn't mind owning some Samian ware or orange/black figure, but they don't go very well with our interior. Particularly the Greek buggery...
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Jun 28, 2020 18:05
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Badger of Basra posted:Probably fake history but still an interesting thread for the mythmaking parts of it: Interesting and not entirely implausible. Although I'd say those faces look every bit as Afghan as Italian. However, these two lines... quote:DNA studies have been inconclusive. quote:The site superintendent told me funding dried up Are probably related. It would be easy to show a link to the Romans with modern DNA techniques, they probably did and probably got some bad answers and swept the whole thing under the rug.
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Jun 28, 2020 18:30
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Dalael posted:Hmm.. odds are Crassus raised his legions in the east, so most of those legionaires probably came from wherever that was, not Italy. Fair enough, but they were recruited from somewhere west of China.
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Jun 28, 2020 18:45
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Kylaer posted:I would pay good money for some plates or something painted in the classic Greek art style but, like, using modern gym equipment. The shameful plate of someone doing curls in the squat rack, for which the gods will wreak a terrible vengeance. Heh, that's an awesome idea. Perfect black figure, only Athena is DJing while the argonauts are losing their poo poo on the dancefloor.
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Jun 28, 2020 21:00
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Tunicate posted:Romans loved bikini girls. Etrurian girls are hip I really dig those styles they wear And Campania girls with the way they talk They knock me out when I'm down there I wish they all could be Roman cives...
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Jul 1, 2020 16:59
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Perhaps it's more right to say that previous languages got more thoroughly eradicated the nearer you were Rome and whoever was left kept speaking whatever they knew how to speak. Which was still a bewildering array of mutually incomprehensible languages way into the modern era.
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Jul 3, 2020 19:44
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Grand Fromage posted:It's also easy to forget Latin was one of those languages where there was a standardized written form but the spoken form was a wide dialect spectrum. The assorted vulgates were mutually intelligible, they didn't really start to split apart until the empire did and people weren't routinely moving around anymore and smoothing out the differences, but they still weren't the written language that you learn if you take Latin classes. Isn't it true that many in the empire didn't even speak it? Kind of like medieval monks who all wrote Latin in their illuminated manuscripts but spoke Frankish or French or Norse or whatever. e: eh, this obivously even applies to scientists way into the Enlightenment
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Jul 4, 2020 21:41
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Arglebargle III posted:aren't Spanish and Italian still mutually intelligible? cheetah7071 posted:The local romance languages before modern nationalism were pretty much a continuum. Someone in southern France would be speaking a language much more similar to someone in northern Italy than northern France Both of these are correct and there a gradients between. A Spanish person with a good language ear will understand Italian by substituting unfamiliar sounds etc, one without a good ear will be flummoxed. But Spanish hasn't been Spanish continuously for 1000 years, just like any other language it has moved and with trade and connections it grows into its neighbors. And yeah before nationalism or even Napoleon there were many regional romance languages (Basque a lonely island), which are all post Roman divergences AFAIK. It's very sad how nationalism or similar ideologies even in very recent years has been trying to squash them instead of highlighting their heritage.They aren't Gaulish remnants themselves but divergences from whatever the empire hoi polloi pig latin was, which probably had Gaulish remnants mixed in.
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Jul 4, 2020 22:13
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Twitter < York Medieval era < Now Education > No education
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Jul 5, 2020 23:05
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Arglebargle III posted:
"Once we add some fat outline to this impact font, the emperor will finally have his image macro"
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Jul 21, 2020 12:55
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SerialKilldeer posted:If accurate information about Trump survives a couple millennia, I wouldn't blame historians for being skeptical about some of it. "President Trump constantly golfing at Trump resorts must be some mixup of timelines. He was known for his golfing and resorts pre-presidency, but there were checks and balances in place that would have prevented him spending public money on his own properties".
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Jul 22, 2020 09:45
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Dalael posted:I knew about the Rosetta Stone, but I did not know it was almost used as fortifications and how close it came to be lost forever. Many great finds have this sort of story, they almost got lost or destroyed or not found or something. It makes you wonder how much we
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Jul 24, 2020 18:02
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Epicurius posted:I took a classical and medieval political theory class in college, and the professor started the class with a great demonstration. First day, she walked in, and none of us were paying a lot of attention. She then had each of us write a paragraph describing how she walked in and what she did. Then, after she collected the papers, she just started throwing them out, one by one, saying "fire in the monastery, city sacked, mice ate the manuscript, and so on, until she had two pieces of paper left, neither of which agreed with each other and neither of which were accurate as to what she had actually done. That's amazing, I would follow her into battle.
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Jul 24, 2020 20:27
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:They are extremely cool and I recommend seeing them in person if you get the chance. If you saw a moose and thought it was bigger than you imagined, the bison is like, "oh gently caress, this is the one megafauna we didn't finish off." Makes you really wonder how amazing the fauna was around the time the first humans started arriving.
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Jul 28, 2020 17:50
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What would be the worst though? I think I would rather be pretty much anything other than a sugar slave in the Caribbean.
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Jul 30, 2020 05:10
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Gladi posted:I do not remember the source, but I have read argument that actual religious zeal played a major role. It seems strange to me, but plenty of people then (and now even) do sincerely believe to be chosen by heavens to spread the faith. Definitely. But if you were applying for royal funding for your get-rich-quick scheme, you would also put some very pious stuff in the "reason"-box. This also helps the king defend some fairly speculative allocations of state funds, which even a dictator needs to do.
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Jul 30, 2020 08:35
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FreudianSlippers posted:Slave Fast Become a beautiful return on someone's investment.
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Jul 30, 2020 17:23
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Read this bit on Anglo-Saxon slavery just now, think I just googled it when feedmegin posted and left the tab. Anyway, this phrasing https://octavia.net/slavery-in-anglo-saxon-england/ quote:Here it is made known in this gospel that Godwig the Buck has bought Leofgifu the dairymaid at North Stoke and her offspring from Abbot Ælfsige for half a pound, to eternal freedom, in the witness of all the community at Bath. Christ blind him who ever perverts this. I might start signing code commits at work with that.
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Jul 30, 2020 17:57
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I feel like there are two different things being discussed here, at least. On the one hand tolerance, the cultural melting pot and so on. I think that is associated with economic boom times, ancient Rome or modern New York, if you're where it's happening and making cash money, you care much more where the wine is from than where the people you're celebrating with are from. Being actively hostile to others, cracking down on other religious practices happening nearby, might as well be for the same reason. Borrow money from the Jews, then persecute them because they did devilish things. Don't cancel the debt though, take over as bondholder m'Lord, ka-ching! It's not that people don't have anti-other-people feelings without economic motivations, it's just that economic motivations seems a tremendously potent fertilizer, just like boom times did the opposite. If you can think of a workable reason to gently caress someone over, and you're in bad need of loving someone over... But of course, "to persecute" wouldn't exist as a concept if there wasn't religious antipathy regardless of economics. On the other hand, the making of religious practices by mixing up previous ones, perhaps add some contemporary spice. That's the only way I know of to make a religious practice. Even the Spaghetti Monster is thoroughly rooted in Christianity. I would be surprised to find any present religious practice you couldn't trace back to something else historically documented. I'm sure the paleolithic Lion Man came from some previous iteration of "higher being withing nature", and it even manifested itself as art, which is so important in religion still. The anti-art protestants would rip out the gaudy kitsch from a cathedral, but they still did their business in a cathedral. They just wanted minimal architectural art I guess. Perhaps the academic understanding of syncretism is different from the previous paragraph, but maybe that's more in terms of quantity rather than quality. A tiny bit is invented every now and then, then it is mixed in with whatever fits. It's power dynamics and economics, history bread and butter, that mostly dictate what actually fits. I also think that understanding past religious practices is made difficult if you think that everyone believed in the same way Christians believe. Persecuting someone else for their beliefs is a very Christian thing, or late Roman if you will. The expanding empire Romans didn't kill you for that, they killed you for resisting political submission. Sacrifice to whatever god you want, but do it at our temples. There's economic and political side effects associated with sacrificing at a temple, and it ain't happening up in the sky.
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Jul 30, 2020 23:31
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Nessus posted:I imagine most Americans are just as ignorant of religious matters as medieval peasants, just in a slightly different way - more aware that there are other sects beyond The Church (if not always much more aware), and probably the peasant knew the lore a little better if only due to lack of other entertainment. I don't think that Americans are ignorant. Medieval peasants were ignorant of other nations' practices, but their own practices got beaten into them at an early age. But there's a difference in not having heard of something and not respecting something.
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Jul 31, 2020 01:18
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Gaius Marius posted:This is a poor argument. The volume of information for the modern person is vastly larger, and of much less comparative value. It also ignores that it's very possible to teach the illiterate. The average American is probably just as well versed in the knowledge pertaining to their own lives of the medieval man. It's just a different set of useful knowledge All great points. If anyone here got time travelled back to an 11th century village all their Wikipedia factoids would be worthless and their weak computer arms and lack of farm boy know-how would put them at the bottom of society. "But but...we should mechanize! Let's use electricity or something! It's supposed to come out of your wall...hmmm "
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Jul 31, 2020 08:53
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Rockopolis posted:Could always invent distilled spirits. Being the dude who makes moonshine has to be a decent way to make money. At least it's better to be beheaded by the local lord for dodging import duties than being burnt for the sorcery of methanol poisoning.
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Jul 31, 2020 11:38
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Being able to do math and economics would probably get you good work come to think of it. And timing big known events. "Very well Monsieur, you will certainly crush the English when you encounter them, maybe near Agincourt or something. Just wear your extra heavy armor and dismount. By the way, before you go, can I borrow a gazillion francs? I'll pay you back when you're back from the battle."
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Jul 31, 2020 17:37
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:What's the Terminus Ad Quem for this thread in terms of no longer ancient? Different times, it depends if you are posting about imperial rule, spinoffs or barbarians.
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Jul 31, 2020 19:17
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If there's white smoke, 
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Jul 31, 2020 19:30
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I started reading the letters of Pliny the younger, and just wanted to post a warm recommendation to others like me who are interested in history but rarely go beyond BBC docs and Wikipedia. He comes across as a real Italian gentleman, and makes the era come to life much more than anything else I've read. This nice Kindle edition is $7. – "The Letters of the Younger Pliny (Classics)" by Pliny the Younger, Betty Radice. https://a.co/9gis7KJ
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Aug 12, 2020 08:47
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cheetah7071 posted:does anyone here have any knowledge of what bronze age boats/sailing was like? Any well-preserved wrecks, or scattered evidence of how navies worked before triremes? The best preserved wreck was this whopper from two years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/23/oldest-intact-shipwreck-thought-to-be-ancient-greek-discovered-at-bottom-of-black-sea But it's a trading vessel, not a military one which I guess you want to know about. But that Black Sea find didn't disagree with historical sources, so you can count it as a small piece of evidence that historical sources can be trusted in their descriptions on military ships. I also gather you meant Mediterranean cultures, but even if this boat was found in Denmark and is iron age, it is at least military not a trireme and in tune with historical sources (looks like bronze age rock carvings): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjortspring_boat Amazing, but probably not what you wanted. 
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Aug 12, 2020 23:23
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FreudianSlippers posted:All I know is that they mostly sailed along the coast and no one deliberately sailed out to open high seas until the iron age. That is a simplification, but it is accurate. The most impressive bronze age sailing we have evidence for (IMHO) is the tin trade between the Mediterranean and the British isles. Through Gibraltar, across the bay of Biscay, the Channel, in the same age as the pyramids. It would be fair to say that was "along the coast", but it would have been an incredible risk to the ones trying it. Then you have the Phoenicians exploring here and there, I'm guessing someone definitely "deliberately sailed out to open high seas" as you say in that age, only they didn't know it was the open high seas and nobody ever heard from them again. If you look at vikings discovering America, they didn't set out to deliberately cross the open high seas in one go, but stepped from one settlement to the next. Leif Eriksson started from Greenland, not Norway, according to the saga. Isolated, it's more impressive to sail from Norway to Greenland, than from Greenland to Newfoundland. But the trip from Norway to Greenland wasn't isolated, it was following a pattern of accumulated travel knowledge via Shetland, Faroes and Iceland, you could almost say "along the coast". Perhaps a few others tried west, but didn't live to tell the tale? Point is, ship technology follows after explorations, it doesn't lead to explorations. It's hare brained exploration which leads to discovery which leads to people going "holy poo poo let's build loving amazing boats". You can cross the Atlantic in a hollowed out tree trunk. That is, you'll probably fail, but if enough people try someone will make it sooner or later. Once you learn what is to be gained by crossing, you will be incentivized for a tree trunk Kennedy moon shot technology leap. There's plenty of evidence that humans have crossed tough seas with technology simpler than bronze age, but they probably did so at very high risk.
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Aug 12, 2020 23:52
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cheetah7071 posted:I'm actually interested about any bronze age boat knowledge you have, thanks for the links! Not much, I'm just a dilettante. But that find is beyond anything else of the era because it sank so deep into waters without oxygen or woodeating bugs, there is usually no wood left because they sailed near the coast, sunk in the shallows and only the stony bits survive, amphoras, ballast and anchors. There are many known bronze age shipwrecks identified by just the type of ballast or cargo. The type of copper ingot that looks like an animal skin with one "leg" in each is corner is very typical of peak bronze age trade has been found in British shallows in reasonable places for them to dock, which is just mind blowing. cheetah7071 posted:The context is just sort of a vague idea that many things were invented much later that I was originally aware of--things like how the saddle was a surprisingly late development. That train of thought led me to wonder if there's any core concepts of how boats work that were still relatively new in the classical era, which is the earliest period I know anything about Good question. I don't know how to answer it, but I can add a simpler one. I saw a Pompeian dresser, torched black, with cupboard doors and a drawer. Who knows when the wooden drawer was invented? Anyone born after 79 AD knows exactly how to use a drawer, it's so self evident it makes you wonder how far back it reaches. You can think the same with boats. A boat has to be waterproof, that works with paleolithic log boats or neolithic skin boats. But it seems like there are no big steps from there, just gradual ones. We know for instance that the English channel was definitely crossed with neolithic skin boats, it was probably routine to them but I would like a lot of TV money and life vests to try it.
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Aug 13, 2020 00:19
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FreudianSlippers posted:Iceland didn't have wagons until circa 1900 because before than there were no roads of any kind in the entire country. Which is odd, considering the vikings definitely had the wheel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SBvN-vyri0 From the Oseberg ship burial, 834, when the wagon was probably quite old. You don't need roads to use wheels, the biggest chariot battles in history happened off road. Maybe they just didn't have that much to carry?
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Aug 14, 2020 21:41
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Alhazred posted:You know what happened to the ancient egyptian tombs? (They were robbed There would obviously be some great curses involved, but a good robbery would make it legendary.
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Aug 16, 2020 09:23
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FreudianSlippers posted:-One of the now extinct branch of Continental Celtic languages Literally believed this 100% for like 10 seconds.
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Sep 2, 2020 18:51
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Libluini posted:I didn't know that, but the maps I saw were from some internet article, and could have been very wrong. Do you have any reliable source I could read about the first Humans arriving in Scandinavia? You've probably seen a map relating to a specific culture, perhaps this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urnfield_culture The earliest stone age cultures in Norway are these, the latter is even found in the extreme north: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosna%E2%80%93Hensbacka_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komsa_culture Reliable sources linked from there, as always. Basically from 10 000 BC the first hunter/gatherer stone age, then from 4000 BC the farming stone age. 1200 BC is towards the end of the bronze age. This piece is in a museum in Copenhagen, dated 1400 BC.  Probably quite amazing people, but we know very little of them. We even have the clothes from one of their women, in the same musem: https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-bronze-age/the-egtved-girl/ You've also missed a spot here: Libluini posted:...around 1200 BC, so around the time the Roman Empire beat up the Gauls The Romans invaded Gaul in the 50s BC and it wasn't an empire yet. They did have some disagreements in the preceding centuries too of course.
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Sep 3, 2020 21:48
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skasion posted:1st century BC Rome was absolutely an empire, it just wasn’t a monarchy. Yet You're right, in that sense it was an empire.
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Sep 3, 2020 22:27
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Grand Fromage posted:Yep. I hate the popular republic/empire distinction since Rome was an empire from at least the end of the Second Punic War. I've come around to thinking we shouldn't even say the republic ended, but that's getting esoteric so I'm willing to at least use republic/principate as a convenient division. Well it's very handy to say it's an empire when it has an emperor and Augustus was the first emperor, even if he himself would have denied that. When did that distinction start really? I don't think medieval historians or monks reading ancient texts or whatever cared much for a republic, but in the 1700s, 1800s it was a pretty trendy concept.
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Sep 3, 2020 23:08
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skasion posted:The idea of treating leading generals as monarchs settled in basically the minute Augustus was dead, and in a lot of ways had been coming on during and even before his lifetime. That the state was dominated by monarchs would go on to be the explicit stance of the preeminent Latin historian of the early empire, which has been hugely influential in modern points of view. A lot of the problem here is linguistic ambiguity. Post-Roman languages have invested the word “emperor” with much significance that it didn’t possess for Romans of Augustus’ day, would in fact come to possess only as the result of its association with Augustus and those who tried to follow up his acts. Augustus would never have denied being Imperator: for many years it was literally his first name. What he would have denied to his fellow senators, was that he was a king. But if Greeks in the provinces want to dedicate to him as king and god, how can he refuse? Very well put, I suppose republic too has a linguistic issue where we thing of it now as a distinct type of state but they may have thought more of as somewhere on a scale of how much the people are governing themselves.
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Sep 3, 2020 23:58
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Emerged monolingualism > Whatever it is we have now > Forced monolingualism
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Sep 8, 2020 12:15
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