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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   21270 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 9, 2023

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No good news are coming from anywhere, whether from culture wars or the real ones. As fitting for Friday the 13th.

Except one thing that is large, and good.

First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by 21yo computer science student

Crucified bird thread

For ancient history nerds, this is big, really big. Imagine how will space nerds feel if/when Elon delivers what he promised and gets his Starship to the orbit. This big.

So what is the hype about?

Ancient books were in form of scrolls made of papyrus that had to be constantly rolled and unrolled in order to be read. This was hard on the material, and ancient books had limited shelf time(pun intended).

Ancient libraries needed constant recopying of books to stay functional, and this was laborious and expensive (no need to blame Christians or Muslims for destruction of ancient literature, ordinary daily wear and tear would be sufficient). No surprise that new revolutionary technology of bound book took the world by storm.

All ancient libraries are long gone - except one, found in Herculaneum under 100 feet of volcanic ash. And not ordinary library, but library of wealthy Roman, owner of one of most luxurious villas known from the Roman Empire.

You can visit modern replica in California.

Nearly two thousands of ancient scrolls, unfortunately they now looked like this.

For 250 years, ancient history nerds didn't gave up and tried to find ways to read the scrolls. Mostly destructive ways

Since their discovery, previous attempts used rose water, liquid mercury, vegetable gas, sulfuric compounds, papyrus juice, or a mixture of ethanol, glycerin, and warm water, in hopes to make scrolls readable.

but they sometimes worked.

By the middle of the 20th century, only 585 rolls or fragments had been completely unrolled, and 209 unrolled in part. Of the unrolled papyri, about 200 had been deciphered and published, and about 150 only deciphered.

Now we can finally do better. So what can we hope for?

Do not expect lost masterpieces of classical literature.

Owner of the library was single mindedly dedicated to philosophy, particularly Epicurean philosophy. Expect more writings by Philodemus of Gadara, Zeno of Sidon and Epicurus himself.

Epicureans, these pig ignorant fedora atheists whose teachings can appeal only to the worst degenerates, as Stoics, Jews and Christians said (and as their major competitors, they had to know best)?

(after 2000 years, "epicurean" is still insult used for secular Jews by their observant brothers)

Or Epicureans, founders of science and inventors of modern enlightened values?

The revival of Epicureanism in the 17th century coincided with the growth of scientific rationalism and classical liberalism. There can be no doubt these facts are connected. It may, indeed, be argued that the first was a leading cause of the second two, and that we are now living in a world shaped, in every worthwhile sense, by the ideas of Epicurus.

We could finally find out, we could read Epicurus' and Epicureans own words instead of fragments and more or less hostile refutations. For true ancient history nerd, this would be as exciting as finding new poem by Sappho or new play by Euripides.

Here is an interesting an article about the library and what its contents may be. An excerpt:

It’s unlikely the Herculaneum villa’s library only contained this stuff. It’s all too narrow and niche in subject, and by all accounts the ancient elite were proud of amassing diverse collections in their libraries, and embarrassed not to have succeeded ... What we have appears to merely be a couple of shelves of volumes, maybe just one bookcase, all from the same spot, probably swept directly into the crates we found them in and staged in the courtyard to await a wagon to haul them.

There would have been a great deal else. Literature, history, science. Epistolaries, miscellanies, essays. Memoirs, novels, biographies. Satires. The work of orators and poets. Philosophy and mathematics. Scientific studies and technical manuals. Dictionaries and encyclopedias; and more ...

...

Consider the sole exception to the subject-theme of the books we recovered from the courtyard staging area: a lost history of Seneca the Elder (the then-famous father of the now-famous Seneca). Sadly, we can’t fully reconstruct it due to extensive damage. But it would have been nice to get it all, because that history ran up to the end of the reign of Tiberius, making it a text (heretofore entirely lost) recording Roman history during the very time when Jesus is supposed to have lived, which was written by a contemporary to those events. Since it began its narrative during the civil war of Julius Caesar, it only covered a single-century span of events, which could mean it was quite detailed. Could it have discussed Judean affairs in any important way? What about other things, unrelated to Christianity?

Thanks for this, great to hear something constructive instead of destructive for once. A light on ancient history that was long lost, and an amazing union of technology and human enthusiasm and learning.

That's pretty awesome, thanks for throwing some positive news at us.

All I'm gonna say is that it's nice to see the real UK finally getting some respect. ;-)

Owner of the library was single mindedly dedicated to philosophy, particularly Epicurean philosophy. Expect more writings by Philodemus of Gadara, Zeno of Sidon and Epicurus himself.

Damn. Possibly the least interesting thing that could've come out of there, as far as I'm concerned.

Still a good thing to hear about, though. Nice.

Damn. Possibly the least interesting thing that could've come out of there, as far as I'm concerned.

Well, there is hope (or wishful thinking) that the scrolls were only small part of villa library, that they were special Epicurean collection most valued by the owner (the scrolls were not on shelves, they were packed in chests, ready to be carted away).

Alternatively, they were possessions of previous owner inherited by new owner, who was not interested in Epicureanism, put them off shelves into storage space and forgot about them.

Well off and cultured Romans would own more books. Villa owner was one of 1% of 1% of Roman Empire and definitely was a man of culture.

Its luxury is shown by its exquisite architecture and by the large number of outstanding works of art discovered, including frescoes, bronzes and marble sculpture which constitute the largest collection of Greek and Roman sculptures ever discovered in a single context.

Such house would be expected to have two large symmetrical libraries, one Greek and one Latin containing classical works of the respective literature.

More details and sources in Reddit thread

Alternatively, they were possessions of previous owner inherited by new owner, who was not interested in Epicureanism, put them off shelves into storage space and forgot about them.

That's a highly plausible interpretation; and not in any way incompatible with this library being one of the most important advances in the human search for truth.

Certainly Epicurean philosophy has a greater claim to the word "truth" than whatever anyone on here may have to say about Hunter Biden.

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