News from the ancient worlds.
(https://i.postimg.cc/fyywrD6W/restaurant-pompei2.jpg)
Archaeologists uncover ancient street food shop in Pompeii (https://www.reuters.com/article/italy-pompeii/archaeologists-uncover-ancient-street-food-shop-in-pompeii-idUSKBN2900D3)
You can know what people were eating at the disaster day... (a bit of a morbid thing to know)
Elections? :)
(https://assets.amuniversal.com/21bc2a900fec013935e2005056a9545d)
This has been a good tomb-looting year, or as Esquire puts it: We Sure Are Digging Up a Lot of Ancient Dead People These Days (https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a34825606/mummy-excavation-egypt-muslim-crypt-spain/)
The Norwegian and Spanish ones are late and thus out of period (Viking and Muslim age respectively), but the Egyptian one is right in time, full of Greeks hidden in boxes.
Still, Esquire missed the biggest one, in Chengdu.
https://youtu.be/jEEUWjvXWI4
We see dead people.
Egypt announces new archaeological discovery in Alexandria (https://dailynewsegypt.com/2021/01/30/new-archaeological-discovery-in-alexandria/)
(https://i.postimg.cc/c1zGdrfV/beerfactory.jpg)
What is that??
A beer factory :cheers:
World's oldest known beer factory may have been unearthed in Egypt (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/feb/13/worlds-oldest-known-beer-factory-may-have-been-unearthed-in-egypt)
Hey! That's the old kingdom. That predated antiquity with 2-2½ millennia, longer than the 1½ millennia antiquity predated us. But we might be here because those Egyptians liked a tipple. So :cheers:
I have made a proposal to keep track of time, when a wrist watch won't do: Big history: Generational history (https://jaxroam.medium.com/big-history-generational-history-14a73063fbb5?source=friends_link&sk=020e6df292e7ce47594e887f5010c736)
Why did you start counting at around 3.000BC? the real scale in my opinion would be around 40.000 years ago, with Homo Sapiens.
Course in that case you would have 40000/30=1333 generations where nothing happens during 1200 generations. A bit boring story.
Some 5 000 years ago, when people moved they packed their suitcases and their monoliths.
The discovery of a dismantled stone circle—close to Stonehenge's bluestone quarries in west Wales—raises the possibility that a 900-year-old legend about Stonehenge being built from an earlier stone circle contains a grain of truth. Radiocarbon and OSL dating of Waun Mawn indicate construction c. 3000 BC, shortly before the initial construction of Stonehenge. The identical diameters of Waun Mawn and the enclosing ditch of Stonehenge, and their orientations on the midsummer solstice sunrise, suggest that at least part of the Waun Mawn circle was brought from west Wales to Salisbury Plain. This interpretation complements recent isotope work that supports a hypothesis of migration of both people and animals from Wales to Stonehenge.
Why did you start counting at around 3.000BC? the real scale in my opinion would be around 40.000 years ago, with Homo Sapiens.
Course in that case you would have 40000/30=1333 generations where nothing happens during 1200 generations. A bit boring story.
For that, blame the Egyptians. A pretty natural starting point is the bronze age. The need for copper and tin led to a Eurasian trading network all the way from Japan to Scandinavia. That would also coincide with the diffusion of writing, technology, farming surpluses, cities, organised warfare and so on. So 3500-4000 years ago, 120-130 generations ago would be a happening time to begin our period. If we set the Younger Dryas as a convenient starting point for agriculture, we could split that into three parts of about 4000 years, the first third would mostly have been lost in the fog of prehistory, but by the end we'd have fairly functional agriculture with the first animal-driven ploughs, modern pottery and so on. The second third wouldn't be so dramatic either but at least we'd get some stories, and the first individuals we know the name of. And of course, byt the third everything was buzzing, and there are little differences with the world today.
That third could be trisected as well, roughly before antiquity, during antiquity, and now (after antiquity).
But by bisecting as I did (arbitrarily with the first king of united Egypt), this counting would start closer to the beginning, and we have 170 generations to work with, rather than 120.
I read your blog's post (https://jaxroam.medium.com/big-history-generational-history-14a73063fbb5) and saw your Google Doc's Timeline of History.
Are the benefits of the immense, gigantic work of changing school's teaching, books, and people's mind worth of it? Not to speak about convincing Historians (what I believe to be an impossible thing to do).
Anyway, I support your idea just for the sake of the iconoclast attitude and for the absolutely huge discussion and indignation it would generate at the solemn members of the Academia. 8)
I doubt it to being a more practical system than what we have currently.
However there's a problem, where does the French Revolution fits? It's perhaps, after Jesus Christ, the more important timemark to mankind separating an epoque from another. It doesn't seem to me that it has the adequate relevance in your system.
I was definitely taught in terms of "chunks" in my history lessons from the first to the university under some six or seven different teachers. Year-numbers were there, but so were the "chunks" like Bronze Age, Dark Age, Medieval Times, Age of Enlightenment. Did jax have a single bad history teacher throughout his school years?
Moreover, the chunks cannot be universalised. In different places there are different ages at the same absolute time, because the titles of the ages are descriptive of level of culture, not of time. For example, the people of Papua New Guinea are still happily in Stone Age as we speak, though somewhat distracted from it by an occasional smartphone.
Second to biology, history may be the field that has advanced the most in our life times. Whatever you learnt at youth is but a small fraction of what we now know. And this doesn't end. All the while our actual history is ridiculously short, a few hundred generations (to which we're adding a few more every life time).
Now we would be in the first year in the 171th generation since Lower Egypt reportedly got clobbered by Upper Egypt, and the Old Kingdom of Egypt began (or in the 246.16th generation if you opt for decimal).
(https://miro.medium.com/max/864/1*4SDwOr3Za7Wninw5vqMh9g.png)
So what can we do with too much information, especially if we intend to remain blissfully unaware of most of it? We can chunk it. 5000 years of global history is not tractable, 170 generations kind of is. Especially if we ignore 150-160 of those. Of course, the full prehistory is a little more terrifying (my scheme covers the upper left corner, crossing into the Upper Pleistocene). But again, that's a framework behind the framework we can ignore.
If we focus on the good times, it isn't too bad.
(https://stratigraphy.org/ICSchart/ChronostratChart2020-03.jpg)
I was definitely taught in terms of "chunks" in my history lessons from the first to the university under some six or seven different teachers. Year-numbers were there, but so were the "chunks" like Bronze Age, Dark Age, Medieval Times, Age of Enlightenment. Did jax have a single bad history teacher throughout his school years?
Moreover, the chunks cannot be universalised. In different places there are different ages at the same absolute time, because the titles of the ages are descriptive of level of culture, not of time. For example, the people of Papua New Guinea are still happily in Stone Age as we speak, though somewhat distracted from it by an occasional smartphone.
Exactly. That framework we learned at school is unusable, and not interoperable (we learned about "the Viking age", which is basically the time when Scandinavians interfered with UK politics, Lindisfarne to Stamford Bridge, which made little sense in a Scandinavian context, or a Non-Scandinavian context for that matter). Even back then the teachers knew, but what could they do? Teaching history to children is pretty futile to begin with. The chunks in my framework are completely arbitrary, but to which we can attach mnemonic labels as desired.
History in Eurasia (with North Africa as honorary member) is a continuum. Less so the rest of Africa, even less so the rest of the world. But events are synchronised at irregular intervals. No island is an island.
I'm back! And glad to see my absence didn't deter clever and sometimes deep conversation... As I hope my return doesn't stifle its continuation! (Think of me -warts and all, like the proverbial Red-headed Step-child: Just lookin' for love!? :) ) So: I'm back, and -as they say, "with a vengeance! (Those of you with an only middling familiarity with My EnglishTM might take the following admonition in the spirit in which it's meant: When in doubt, consult The (Other) World's Greatest Authority... Namely, Just me!
Anyone who wonders what I'm about should check out my new and improved blog: oakdaleftl.vivaldi.net :)
'Nuff said!
I disagree, ersi: What jax proposes is an intriguing emendation to the "Chunks" stricture you'd impose. (Not all the categories that exit have been dreamt of in your structuralist philosophy, my friend! ) Just because you learned it in school way-back-when doesn't make it so: It ain't necessarily so, as the Gershwin Bros. so poignantly pointed out...
A little lyric?
"The things that you;re liable to read in the Bible... / It ain't necessarily so."
Yes: Balfrager would take the topic side-ways, with an appropriate, humanitarian/humanistic focus. I'm quite interested in joining the fray -- on his side...:devil:
@jax: I promise to examine "your" charts after a while. (I'm gonna have to print them out!)
Exactly. That framework we learned at school is unusable, and not interoperable.
The school framework is used and it brought us to where we are, thus it is usable. And everybody who has given a thought to the matter understands that global interoperability cannot be had, as long as local cultures evolving at variant speeds are to be adequately described.
The global interoperability, providing an occasional synchronisation to connect the timelines of local cultures, archeological-philological evidence permitting, is the Western year-numbers BC/AD method. So all the necessary pieces in history education are already there.
Teaching history to children is pretty futile to begin with.
A general anti-educational attitude will definitely not help your cause.
The chunks in my framework are completely arbitrary, but to which we can attach mnemonic labels as desired.
Also now the chunks are arbitrarily named (Middle Ages? Early Modern times? As times move on, these are bound to be renamed, so there should have been some deeper thought given to naming them in the first place). And the labels are mnemonic enough for teaching children. If the system is unusable to teach children, it is useless.
The current system is already in the spirit that you try to achieve, "Something is easier to remember if it has a name, even if a name is misleading. Names, just like the end points of generations, are arbitrary. In principle the names might be something like Alice and Bob, but hooks help." The current labels of eras are based on a messy, essentially arbitrary system of hooks to provide a reference point to the era, so we are already there.
This deserves a brief out-of-theme comment:
Is just my computer or Oakdale is posting with invisible ink?? :lol:
(https://i.postimg.cc/fJmbdKfM/2021-03-22-08-28-50-Post-Oakdale.png) (https://postimg.cc/fJmbdKfM)
Ah ah, but I discovered how to read it..
I promise to examine "your" charts after a while. (I'm gonna have to print them out!)
Thanks for the Vivaldi refresher-trigger for a sojourn. The social layer seems functional if fallow. I might rereturn.It was that stratigraphical map that was the direct trigger for my proposal. Earth history is ridiculously long. Human history is ridiculously short. We have lived though much of human history in our own life times.Including geological time. When we went to school, geological time was simple. Cambrian, Silurian, the like. Learning two hundred names for different geological periods is not an option, at least not for me. A numerical system would make more sense. The 5:5:3 notation for generations is a direct inheritor. As is the application of the chunking/drill-down of geological time onto the much shorter human history.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ExEZLP_WEAARp5Y?format=png)
Is just my computer or Oakdale is posting with invisible ink?? :lol:
Command-line webbrowsers can strip off all sorts of font face, font size, and colour formatting, so that people's posts become actually visible.
In old times, most browsers were easily capable of this. In IE 5 and 6 it was possible to set "ignore webpage fonts and colours". With some digging it is probably still possible in FF, but Seamonkey and Palemoon are better.
Chrome-likes are dumbing people down too much.
I think back to my "blog" at MyOpera, where I combined my poetry with my photography... One reader -a pretty smart cookie- complained that one poem was too hard to read because its font too closely matched the background (the photo)! I suggested she simply highlight the text... Problem solved!
Not every " problem" requires a special "solution". Sometimes just remembering what the medium actually is is enough...:)
The school framework is used and it brought us to where we are, thus it is usable. And everybody who has given a thought to the matter understands that global interoperability cannot be had, as long as local cultures evolving at variant speeds are to be adequately described.
The global interoperability, providing an occasional synchronisation to connect the timelines of local cultures, archeological-philological evidence permitting, is the Western year-numbers BC/AD method. So all the necessary pieces in history education are already there.
Teaching history to children is pretty futile to begin with.
A general anti-educational attitude will definitely not help your cause.
It was the best available framework at the time. But it doesn't scale that well from "what happened in my village at my great grandmother's time" to 5000+ years of human endeavour.
Each our life-time adds about 2% to history (depending of the span of our lives and what we count as span of history). A child's conscious span is a tenth that. The first historical event I remember I was 4 and didn’t really have a timeline until at least double that. To a child history is something that happens to other people, mostly the dead ones. Chronological stereopsis comes later, if at all. That is not a requirement for engaging with history, but it is part of the reason why we often don’t.
I am no better at maths now than I was at my early 20s, I am probably significantly worse. But I do know a whole lot more history. That is pretty typical. We learn more, even much more, history after school than we did in school. I’d venture the guess that is the case most of you.
That is not «anti-educational», quite the opposite. Education should strive to instil an interest, even enthusiasm for, history, and give tools for acquiring an overview to learn more later in life. But data cramming in childhood is not optimal. We got a lifetime to fill in the blanks. A system like this gives us a frame on which to hang the new information.
A generational framing in turn is a tool for a much larger project:
A call for Big History (https://jaxroam.medium.com/a-call-for-big-history-a89e62dd0f48?source=friends_link&sk=f56ce3886a518b893d58dc5957dd843c)
The chunks in my framework are completely arbitrary, but to which we can attach mnemonic labels as desired.
Also now the chunks are arbitrarily named (Middle Ages? Early Modern times? As times move on, these are bound to be renamed, so there should have been some deeper thought given to naming them in the first place). And the labels are mnemonic enough for teaching children. If the system is unusable to teach children, it is useless.
The current system is already in the spirit that you try to achieve, "Something is easier to remember if it has a name, even if a name is misleading. Names, just like the end points of generations, are arbitrary. In principle the names might be something like Alice and Bob, but hooks help." The current labels of eras are based on a messy, essentially arbitrary system of hooks to provide a reference point to the era, so we are already there.
There is a difference between a tag and a name. "The Middle Ages" isn't just a label, it is the name of a time period in Western Europe, with quibbles for its beginning, end, and geographic extent. The Middle Ages is a thing. A label is just a transient crutch, which can be personalised. If instead of ”phone” you picked e.g. ”US hegemony” or ”the rise and fall of Japan” that’s your prerogative.
I am no better at maths now than I was at my early 20s, I am probably significantly worse. But I do know a whole lot more history. That is pretty typical. We learn more, even much more, history after school than we did in school. I'd venture the guess that is the case most of you.
I'd posit I also learned vastly more history after school while I was in school, except probably while I was going to university.
Except for some rare instances, what's history isn't hidden; not purposefully. (When that's not the case, technology and ingenuity soon defeat the intent of the hiders...: ) That is to say, we can "discover" almost anything that piques our interest!
Not -to be sure- with perfect fidelity. But as close as our budget allows.
Look at the work done by genealogists lately: Even sequenced DNA/RNA have come to play a role! And if our times are thrilling imagine how marvelous those of the next millenia will be...:)
Am I wrong in assuming that no one here accepts history based upon ideological strictures of interpretation?
I suppose that would depend on what you mean by ideological strictures. Epistomologically speaking I would have certain demands on method.
I mean things like: Presuming only economic/power relations are explanatory...that everything else is, at best, self-serving rationalization. ¿Claro?
I suspect methodological considerations don't vary widely among those not afflicted with ideological blinders... :)
I'm guessing that's some kind of jab at a rather unkind interpretation of Marx and Engels. In their historical context their point of not just focusing on a few events and great men presumably had merit. Or is there something roughly post-1950 you have in mind?
When I went to school (university), I was taught the difference between method and methodology. The method is the particular method you use. Methodology is knowing about different applicable methods and being able to explain why the particular method you picked is appropriate for the current purpose.
In study of history, math has its limited place, so has genealogy. But they do not do away with the study of archeological findings and historical texts. Studying economic/power relations has its place too. With different methods you get to know different things about history.
Maybe you are not exactly afflicted with ideological blinders this time, but more like too little schooling, Oakdale.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4DkZ3CWFOk[/video]
I'm guessing that's some kind of jab at a rather unkind interpretation of Marx and Engels. In their historical context their point of not just focusing on a few events and great men presumably had merit. Or is there something roughly post-1950 you have in mind?
I initially thought that was a jab at the teaching of history, but then it looked like the mechanics of history, or rather the mechanics of change. Maybe the teaching of the mechanics of history?
Not only history, but also societal morals seem pretty driven by economics. The less disadvantageous choice has the tendency to be picked as the moral choice (Kant be damned). The history of historical narratives overlaps with the history of self-justification.
a rather unkind interpretation of Marx and Engels
There's a
kind jab that's appropriate?! :) (I give you a smiley face, to mitigate your angry superiority - of is it just a Howie-head shake?; I know you're smart and well-educated. But those whom I've talked to who lived through the worst of what those two proposed... Let's just say that I, for one, believe evil still exists in the world. Shall we leave it at that, for now? But I won't forget: "some kind of jab"... Eventually, I'll go for at least a TKO!)
....started to listen to the forum (on YouTube); had even settled into a comfy rocking chair, when I heard the "moderator(?)" use the word "cosmology" in a peculiarly pretentious way: I've hit pause...
Not only history, but also societal morals seem pretty driven by economics.
A myopic view that profits one little...
The history of historical narratives overlaps with the history of self-justification.
I've reminded you many times, Man is
not The Rational Animal, he is the Rational-
izing Animal. But knowing that and taking it into account should preclude your
vapors, ma'dear.:)
There is a feedback cycle between moral and moralising. But morals shift over time, albeit exceedingly slowly. However those shifts are more fundamental than economics, politics, technology or ideology. Those shifts don't happen through random drift, and the gradient is in the economically beneficial direction.
Not (necessarily) in the profit-raising sense, mind you. Example: We seem to be slowly shifting away from (usually religion imposed) restrictions on eating, like kosher, halal, and you don't eat meat of Fridays, do you? At the same time there is a global shift towards veganism.
There are different theories why e.g. holding kosher became a thing in the first place, but all these (those for Buddhist monks and some other aside) assume you will eat meat, just not with the wrong type of legs or on the wrong day. Veganism is more fundamentalist than either of these religions, but it is a thing because it can be a thing.
They are vegans because they can. Throughout our history we haven't been vegans because we couldn't. Animal products have been a necessary supplement to our diet. Now we are affluent enough that we can forego it, and technology gives us alternatives. Thus we can ask ourselves: Is it right to kill animals for food? I find it likely that 22nd century people will look at our eating habits with revulsion.
Thus we can ask ourselves: Is it right to kill animals for food?
Yes, it is right. Right and natural.
I find it likely that 22nd century people will look at our eating habits with revulsion.
Yes, they'll be eating only pills called
Soma(1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World)).
We're all meat eater, and I assume none of us will survive into the next century. Whenever we see an animal we undress it with our eyes and imagine how they would look in the oven under a blanket of vegetables. Given that the majority of the world's population can't afford to stuff themselves with meat and seafood, or animal by-products, it will be a slow process. But future generations will grow up with respect for animals and not eat them without their consent.
Food is going to get better and tastier, that's the overall trend. But it does not have to be made from animal carcasses, and then that carnivorous connection will be broken.
There are precedents. For ten thousand(s) of years dog was man's best friend. Not merely as guards and companions, but as packed lunches when the going got tough. We ate dogs before we brewed beer or tamed horses, but we don't do that anymore, and many are revolted by the very thought. Like it is with Fido, it will be with Bessie.
Like it is with Fido, it will be with Bessie.
I sure hope you meant "Bossie"...:) (Ain't that right, Betsy?:)
I could go with that. We really should have a cow thread. It interacts with all other threads on this forum, including this one.
Bos taurus may be the dominant and most successful mammal species, as measured in biomass. There are probably more of them than of us, or any other mammal (Sus scrofa is on a distant third, all other mammals a distant fourth).
I assume none of us will survive into the next century.
A reasonable assumption, but not impossible (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnino_de_la_Fuente_Garcia).
A reasonable assumption, but not impossible (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnino_de_la_Fuente_Garcia).
Well, yes, if we posit 120 years as high score, and that anyone here were active at the original Opera forums that finally shut down in 2014, and minimum forum age was 15 years, in theory somebody here could be alive until 2119. In practice I think we are all doomed to perish in the 21st century.
And the last person from the 19th century is recently departed. As a species we have kind of passed that centurial watershed between the 19th and 22nd century.
.Even if somebody here would hang on until next century, (s)he will not be the last animal product eater. I would expect there to be non-vegans still in 2101, but few if any by 2199. Spare a thought for the last meat eater in a vegan world. One thought is enough.
There are precedents. For ten thousand(s) of years dog was man's best friend. Not merely as guards and companions, but as packed lunches when the going got tough. We ate dogs before we brewed beer or tamed horses, but we don't do that anymore, and many are revolted by the very thought. Like it is with Fido, it will be with Bessie.
During the Famine of '44 if you wanted to keep your pet you kept it inside.
Well, yes, if we posit 120 years as high score
A 114 would suffice for me.
Life after 95 or so doesn't seem very appealing though, but we'll see in due time.
[Read too much Science Fiction as a kid: Still thinks the perspective gained during one's first 200 years is needed, to contemplate the prospects of real longevity...:)]
There's also a story of a man who accidentally became immortal hundreds of thousands (or was it millions) of years ago, who's forcibly kept alive by future humans.
Of course life the way I am now seems perfectly appealing for at least a few centuries, but I'm not counting on us having "solved" aging by then. Perhaps if my eyes were to go bad I'd still be able to see with artificial eyes in the second half of the century, a bit like how my one uncle in his late 80s has fake hips.
Alberto Angela says that it's fake news (https://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2021/07/18/news/alberto_angela_racconto_incendio_roma-310580602/) that Nero burned down Rome. I can't get to the full article so I can't tell if Alberto Angela is himself fake news. Anyway, he has authored a trilogy on Roman history, the books are not free and his articles are behind paywall, so he must be totally legit.
Nobody seriously believed that, or that he fiddled. Not in our lifetimes anyway. Like I said before, it is fascinating how much more we know of our past now than we did in our past. Biology and (pre)history are the fields that have changed the most in our life.
Prehistory is kind of crazy, brain research too. Whatever you thought you knew five years ago you have to relearn. IT by comparison is pretty staid. 40 years ago, if you wanted to learn ancient programming, you'd go for Cobol on mainframes. Not to the same extent as before, but they are still hiring. That language is going to live longer than any human.
Nobody seriously believed that, or that he fiddled. Not in our lifetimes anyway.
What you get from traditional history is that people close to Nero's time believed he had burned down Rome and fiddled. Nero must have given off corresponding vibes or something. And there are no contradicting reports.
Alberto Angela's opinion was reported in our media as
archaeologists arrived at the conclusion that Nero did not burn down Rome. How can you get such a conclusion from archaeology?
History is an area open to imagination.
I remember reading somewhere I can't precise that Nero didn't burn Rome but in fact he immediately returned from his villa near by to coordinate the efforts fighting the fire.
Is it true is it false? I don't know, one can't rely in historians, archaeologists and the sort.
Alberto Angela's opinion was reported in our media as archaeologists arrived at the conclusion that Nero did not burn down Rome. How can you get such a conclusion from archaeology?
I would presume the actual argument is that it wasn't rebuilt in any particular organized manner? (Or perhaps that it didn't burn as much as claimed.) Which is to say, something a tad more sensible than who or what started the fire. ;)
He couldn't have literally fiddled while Rome burned unless he was a genius that made a violin almost 1,100 years before it was officially invented, but it's historically possible that he played the cithara. Other reports indicate that he actually sang while the city burned. If the hypothesized singing was a song of lament, this isn't so bad. Others say he coordinated relief efforts after the fire.
So it seems his actions are lost to time. Perhaps that was inevitable, given that he was known as an emperor infamous for his cruelty whose history was written by his many enemies.
Alberto Angela's opinion was reported in our media as archaeologists arrived at the conclusion that Nero did not burn down Rome. How can you get such a conclusion from archaeology?
I would presume the actual argument is that it wasn't rebuilt in any particular organized manner? (Or perhaps that it didn't burn as much as claimed.) Which is to say, something a tad more sensible than who or what started the fire. ;)
I saw a show about ancient Rome that Roman cities were well planned, with wide, straight boulevards and other signs of good urban planning. That is except for one city - Rome itself.
I was on a show about ancient Rome that Roman cities were well planned, with wide, straight boulevards and other signs of good urban planning.
Stroads sound like bad urban planning to me. :P
I would presume the actual argument is that it wasn't rebuilt in any particular organized manner? (Or perhaps that it didn't burn as much as claimed.) Which is to say, something a tad more sensible than who or what started the fire. ;)
As far as I am able to glean from the available text, the argument seems to be that Rome suffered devastating fires at least every eight years or so, for various reasons, therefore let's treat also that particular fire as nothing special.
I was on a show about ancient Rome that Roman cities were well planned, with wide, straight boulevards and other signs of good urban planning. That is except for one city - Rome itself.
The wide straight boulevards were meant to allow an army to enter conveniently. As for Rome, it was not lawful to enter it with an army. There was some law that said something like "Thou shalt not cross Rubicon." Of course the law was broken occasionally, as any other law.
The wide straight boulevards were meant to allow an army to enter conveniently.
Oh, I get it. To make it easier to squash rebellion, of course.
Oh, I get it. To make it easier to squash rebellion, of course.
The Parisian boulevards are also for quelling street protests if I'm not mistaken. No easy way to barricade a neighborhood like back in 1789.
Beer was first in antiquity, as old as agriculture and bread. Some even say that agriculture became a thing because people wanted beer. Also the first writings are about beer, such as salary payment documents where salary includes beer, and beer recipes. All according to this article https://yle.fi/aihe/a/20-10002499
I think this implicitly means that beer is also earlier than wine.
(https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/alcohol-types.jpg)
According to the map of current wine-vs-beer preference in Europe, North Europe favours beer (except Swedes and Danes) and Southern Europe favours wine (except Spaniards). This year April was colder than March and ruined grape fields in France (https://www.womanandhome.com/life/news-entertainment/bordeaux-wine-prices-could-rise-as-french-vineyards-freeze-over/) so this year they'll have to do with beer.
I think this implicitly means that beer is also earlier than wine.
On the flip side, I'm sure we've all encountered accidental wine-like. A grape or kiwi that's started fermenting in the good way rather than getting moldy, that kind of thing. It seems harder to imagine how that would happen with beer.
Very very good point. Wine seems to kinda just happen, whereas beer is more processed and should have arised first as a byproduct in the process of trying to obtain something else and, after the byproduct was found to be good, the procedure would have been repeated for beer's sake.
However, this is how Wikipedia currently stands:
The earliest archeological evidence for a dominant position of wine-making in human culture dates from 8,000 years ago in Georgia.
The oldest known winery was found in Armenia, dating to around 4000 BC.
Beer is one of the world's oldest prepared alcoholic drinks. The earliest archaeological evidence of fermentation consists of 13,000-year-old residues of a beer with the consistency of gruel, used by the semi-nomadic Natufians for ritual feasting, at the Raqefet Cave in the Carmel Mountains near Haifa in Israel. There is evidence that beer was produced at Göbekli Tepe during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (around 8500 BC to 5500 BC).
New Indo-European Language Discovered Yearly archaeological campaigns led by current site director Professor Andreas Schachner of the Istanbul Department of the German Archaeological Institute continue to add to the cuneiform finds. Most of the texts are written in Hittite, the oldest attested Indo-European language and the dominant language at the site. Yet the excavations of this year yielded a surprise. Hidden in a cultic ritual text written in Hittite is a recitation in a hitherto unknown language.
The discovery of another language in the Boğazköy-Hattusha archives is not entirely unexpected, as Daniel Schwemer explains: "The Hittites were uniquely interested in recording rituals in foreign languages."
Such ritual texts, written by scribes of the Hittite king reflect various Anatolian, Syrian, and Mesopotamian traditions and linguistic milieus. The rituals provide valuable glimpses into the little known linguistic landscapes of Late Bronze Age Anatolia, where not just Hittite was spoken. Thus cuneiform texts from Boğazköy-Hattusha include passages in Luwian and Palaic, two other Anatolian-Indo-European languages closely related to Hittite, as well as Hattic, a non-Indo-European language. Now the language of Kalasma can be added to these.
Excellent, even if the text itself is probably fairly boring. Books of hours are the most commonly preserved medieval books.
If rituals and spells (and presumably also epics) are boring, then what would be an interesting clay tablet text? Accounting records?
Not overly boring if unique, but I'm not hedging my bets on that (other than the language variety). :)