Re:Why ancient Roman graffiti is so important to archaeologists
by existencebox on Thursday February 11, 2016 @05:09PM
(#11083705)
At the risk of nitpicking: "Meanwhile, every female Roman voice has been lost to time."
I bring this up less to bang on some diversity card, and more that it seems very far from true? (Yes, they were a vast minority, but 'lost to time' seems quite overwrought) In terms of poetry we have Sulpicia (both of them) and then lots of miscellaneous daily writings e.g. the diary of Vibia Perpetua; and of course Lucretia and Fulvia if we're talking public figures...
And the additional quote of female homosexuality being universally abhorred also seems to be misaligned with what I was taught, but my memories of this are both fuzzier and from my days in university, so I'd be more than willing to be proven wrong. (The obvious argument in my favor is the amount the of attention garnered by the supposed lesbian (both in location and sexual practice) Sappho) My take on it was that there was as much of a distribution in terms of outlook on sexual practices as there is today, albeit very differently weighted.
That all being said, roman graffiti is _amazing_ as a view into "normal people", the article leaving out the fact that gives me a good (but immature) chuckle, that a large amount of graffiti included simply crude drawings of penises.
Re:Why ancient Roman graffiti is so important to archaeologists
by mwfunk on Thursday February 11, 2016 @06:15PM
(#11084096)
The advertising on redorbit.com (desktop site) is utterly preposterous- in terms of the quantity, quality, and repetition, and the relentless popups. I usually get annoyed when HN comments devolve into people discussing the page or the site rather than the contents of the story, but this is just absurd.
I would normally assume that a site that looks like this has to be a domain squatter's autogenerated site, or some sort of honeypot for distributing malware.
Or maybe I'm not getting the same experience everyone else is? If this is what it looks like to everyone, that's grounds for HN blacklisting redorbit.com links. I hope this is a screwup and not what the site owners are going for.
Re:Why ancient Roman graffiti is so important to archaeologists
by mwfunk on Thursday February 11, 2016 @06:24PM
(#11084143)
What I'm seeing in this link: every image and every paragraph is followed by the same Teleflora banner ad that scrolls open when you scroll past that image or paragraph. At some point an animated Revlon ad also appears which expands to fill the entire page. The sidebar and bottom of just about every page is consumed by ginormous BS "Trending now!" links to "25 celebrities you didn't know posed topless!" and "The weight loss trick that they don't want you to know!" articles on other equally disreputable sites. The page for this article looks like satire, it's so ridiculous and seedy and invasive. I wanted to read the article, I really did.
Re:Why ancient Roman graffiti is so important to archaeologists
by mwfunk on Thursday February 11, 2016 @09:12PM
(#11084873)
No. But any site that is willing to go to that length to compromise their content (for people who don't use ad blockers) clearly doesn't value their content or the people who read it. That's the message it sends.
Re:Why ancient Roman graffiti is so important to archaeologists
by dredmorbius on Thursday February 11, 2016 @08:21PM
(#11084706)
Mobile Android Firefox with uBlock Origin it's not bad, other than that the font's too small (10" tablet). With Firefox's Reader Mode (which I engage for virtually all text content, and very much wish were the default), it's fine.
Not dismissing your experience at all (I'm quite sensitive to annoying sites). Just noting that it's possible to improve on it markedly.
Re:Why ancient Roman graffiti is so important to archaeologists
by ajtaylor on Friday February 12, 2016 @02:00PM
(#11089533)
Beyond being annoying in the extreme, this surely must run afoul of the advertising source's rules. I couldn't even finish reading the page because the ads kept popping up and distracting me!
Including the one of a six-legged cow (with three horns). I have no idea why the Norwegians wanted to draw a six-legged cow, but I assume it must have some significance. If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them.
Re:Why ancient Roman graffiti is so important to archaeologists
by riffraff on Friday February 12, 2016 @02:40AM
(#11085817)
I would have interpreted the third horn as ears.
Two hypothesis on the six legs:
* an oddity, this things sometimes happen and might have been interpreted as good or bad omens, worth recording. The positioning (mid-flank rather than at the bottom, like the others) seems consistent with similar cases I have seen.
Random internet result: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/6-legged-lamb_n_123...
* maybe those are not extra legs of the top animal, but horns of the bottom animal (who also has 4 short legs), maybe recording when some ram or species of deer charged into a much larger cow? Though the horns would be out of proportion, and I'd expect them to be curved.
Re:Why ancient Roman graffiti is so important to archaeologists
by pvaldes on Sunday February 14, 2016 @08:57AM
(#11098268)
They are spears pointing to the vulnerable places to killing the uro? nape and two zones of the belly. Other pictures of the same series could be interpreted also as traps, and with a little of imagination, even pools of blood under both uros.
Re:Why ancient Roman graffiti is so important to archaeologists
by matco11 on Friday February 12, 2016 @12:12AM
(#11085455)
>"These places weren’t necessarily vast repositories of lost literature, but the eruption froze them nearly perfectly in time, preserving them for nearly 2,000 years—and preserving thousands of pieces of graffiti along with them."
Actually, Pompeii and Herculaneum are precisely one of the largest and most precious repositories of lost ancient literature.
Re:Why ancient Roman graffiti is so important to archaeologists
by chrstphrhrt on Thursday February 11, 2016 @11:57PM
(#11085403)
Umm what? "[Pompeii and Herculaneum] weren’t necessarily vast repositories of lost literature"
Not sure about Pompeii, but Herculaneum had the villa of Piso with tons of scrolls from Philodemus, who totally fleshed out the ideas of Epicurus, upon whose atomism all of modern science is based.
Re:Why ancient Roman graffiti is so important to archaeologists
by thaumasiotes on Friday February 12, 2016 @12:09AM
(#11085445)
> Epicurus, upon whose atomism all of modern science is based.
It is difficult to comprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a statement.
Modern science makes no reference to Epicurean atomism, other than in the historical choice of the word "atom" to refer to something that Epicurus wasn't talking about.
I bring this up less to bang on some diversity card, and more that it seems very far from true? (Yes, they were a vast minority, but 'lost to time' seems quite overwrought) In terms of poetry we have Sulpicia (both of them) and then lots of miscellaneous daily writings e.g. the diary of Vibia Perpetua; and of course Lucretia and Fulvia if we're talking public figures...
And the additional quote of female homosexuality being universally abhorred also seems to be misaligned with what I was taught, but my memories of this are both fuzzier and from my days in university, so I'd be more than willing to be proven wrong. (The obvious argument in my favor is the amount the of attention garnered by the supposed lesbian (both in location and sexual practice) Sappho) My take on it was that there was as much of a distribution in terms of outlook on sexual practices as there is today, albeit very differently weighted.
That all being said, roman graffiti is _amazing_ as a view into "normal people", the article leaving out the fact that gives me a good (but immature) chuckle, that a large amount of graffiti included simply crude drawings of penises.
I would normally assume that a site that looks like this has to be a domain squatter's autogenerated site, or some sort of honeypot for distributing malware.
Or maybe I'm not getting the same experience everyone else is? If this is what it looks like to everyone, that's grounds for HN blacklisting redorbit.com links. I hope this is a screwup and not what the site owners are going for.
http://www.pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancient/Graffiti%20from%2...
That's apocryphal, right? How did he know it was "BC"?
Not dismissing your experience at all (I'm quite sensitive to annoying sites). Just noting that it's possible to improve on it markedly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maeshowe
"He is a viking...come here under the barrow"
http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/maeshowe/maeshrunes.htm
http://i.imgur.com/2ago5A9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/YaIIXdP.jpg
Including the one of a six-legged cow (with three horns). I have no idea why the Norwegians wanted to draw a six-legged cow, but I assume it must have some significance. If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them.
Two hypothesis on the six legs:
* an oddity, this things sometimes happen and might have been interpreted as good or bad omens, worth recording. The positioning (mid-flank rather than at the bottom, like the others) seems consistent with similar cases I have seen. Random internet result: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/6-legged-lamb_n_123...
* maybe those are not extra legs of the top animal, but horns of the bottom animal (who also has 4 short legs), maybe recording when some ram or species of deer charged into a much larger cow? Though the horns would be out of proportion, and I'd expect them to be curved.
Actually, Pompeii and Herculaneum are precisely one of the largest and most precious repositories of lost ancient literature.
http://ancphil.lsa.umich.edu/-/downloads/papyri/JankoRecentD...
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/the-invisible-l...
Not sure about Pompeii, but Herculaneum had the villa of Piso with tons of scrolls from Philodemus, who totally fleshed out the ideas of Epicurus, upon whose atomism all of modern science is based.
It is difficult to comprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a statement.
Modern science makes no reference to Epicurean atomism, other than in the historical choice of the word "atom" to refer to something that Epicurus wasn't talking about.
My comment was meant to express alarm that anyone could say there was no lost library buried by Vesuvius.
Here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_of_the_Papyri#Epicureani...