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Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 6, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Is there an element of truth to this idea that Roman history is partially an invention of Italian humanists? Have the originals discovered by early renaissance humanists ever been carbon dated?

https://www.unz.com/article/how-fake-is-roman-antiquity/

I didn’t want to click through to unz, so I wrote up this whole thing about the Portland vase. It was the first thing in the British Museum’s Roman collection, but glass also can’t be carbon dated. Since I lost my draft, though, here’s the short version.

Even if the main critic was right and that vase is a fake, I don’t think much changes. We still have other historical records corroborating the existence of the alleged last Roman owner. We’ve got a few dozen other samples of glass using the same technique. And we have a broader picture of Roman history anchored by radiocarbon of charcoal and such from towns, military camps, and so on.

It’s pretty implausible that Gibbon et al. were writing massive shared-universe fan fiction.

What is wrong with Unz. Even if his politics suck, it's not like you are enriching him by clicking like you would the Wasingtonpost

I wasn’t sure of that ahead of time. I actually couldn’t remember the political lean, either, since that other response was playing the thesis up as anti-white. Yeah, I figured it out pretty quick.

But for me, it’s more about legitimacy. Somewhere, a view counter has ticked up, and an author gets to use me to convince others that he’s a worthy read. I’ll freely admit it’s not particularly rational.