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"Bronze Age Pompeii" Discovered
FortKnox writes "Italian archaeologists that were selling rights to build an underground parking lot, north of Pompeii, have discovered an ancient village within it. This discovery is a village that is basically a snapshot of the bronze age. The city, which is north of Vesuvius, was given the name "Nola". One odd thing, though, unlike Pompeii, they haven't found bodies in Nola. Good stuff to find, and a good place to compare theory with proof."
With its well-preserved shops, houses, amphitheater and baths, Pompeii is one of Italy's top tourist sites.
Well, I guess that explains where everyone was...
This is really a gold mine. I can't believe how fortunate we are to have a site like this. It may well do for Bronze age knowledge what Pompeii did for Roman knowledge.
We are going to see, for the first time, what life was REALLY like in bronze age Europe. It could very well change all our ideas about the development of early societies.
Yeeha! I can't wait to go . . .
Later . . . . . . WebBug
"Today, a giant pool of magma still lies beneath Vesuvius and extends at least 400 square
kilometers under some of Italy's scenic coastline, making a fresh eruption possible at any
time."
If there's another eruption, future scientists will be able to study how 20th century tourists interacted with bronze-age archeological tourist attractions.
@home doesn't do it for ya? Try NOT@HOME.
tcd004
Natural time capsules like Pompeii, Herculaneum, the "ice man", Peruvian mountain mummies fascinate the Hell out of me because they give a hint of the life that was lived by those using the things left behind.
This discovery seems especially interesting because reconstructing bronze age villages has been the province of experimental archaeologists like the late Dr. Peter Reynolds. It should be good to have more data to compare their reconstructions with.
Italy is quite amazing in that when ruins are found, they are generally left untouched. Rome is a great example of this in that there are vast ruins right in the downtown areas!! Imagine the businesses and contractors that were planning on building on those sites! Imagine the great many ruins hidden underneath all of the modern buildings! Yikes.
- MayorQ
I guess they were smart enough to avoid the "Duck and Cover" technique that Pompeii's residents tried...
for about 5 years from now, after they've had time to excavate more.
My wife and I went to Italy on our honeymoon in March and toured Pompeii. It truly is humbling to stand in the middle of this city. All at once it gives you a sense of 1) the fleeting nature of life 2) the complete and total lack of significance that the moment in time that we occupy right now has and 3) wonder at the way civilization has changed in the past few thousand years. I tend very easily to lose any sort of perspective on my place in the universe, visiting historical treasures such as these have the ability to show you a much broader and more complete picture of the world and your place in it...
I can't wait to visit Nola...
No man is an island, but Gary is a city in Indiana.
ROME, June 12, 2002
Archaeologists excavating the ruins of the buried city of Nola have found documents which provide a stunning insight into the nature of Nolan society, and the possible causes for its destruction.
One of the documents, 'Specimen 42A/6', after translation from the ancient cunieform, reads:
"To the people of Nola - we have written to you several times asking you to cease and desist your illegal activities.
"This is your final warning that if you don't immediately amend your ways, the government of Rome, at the decree of Emperor Numa, will invoke the fire gods to destroy your city without any further notice.
"One last time, we state our demands:
1) Cease trading in scrolls and engraved tablets. No one is to possess scrolls or tablets unless they have been licensed from Softius Micrius Gatius Billius.
2) Cease all use of the rotary bearing horizontal transport system, commonly known as the 'Wheel'. Your persistent use of the Wheel violates patents MDCCLXXVI, DCCXLIV, MMMCCLXXXVIII and CDLXIII. OR, purchase a 'Wheel End User License', which entitles you to a subscription to 'Wheel version VIII', as long as you pay the royalty of two pieces of silver per thousand rotations per wheel, and pay for regular new releases.
3) Hunt and slaughter all carrier pigeons. These birds have been used for copyright infringement purposes, and must die.
4) Hunt all birds of species parakeet or lorikeet (nicknamed by your local population as 'Aves em-pee-threeius' - these birds have copyright-infringing capabilities, and have been used to illegally record and distribute copyrighted music.
"Lastly, once again, failure to immediately comply with these demands will result in the destruction of your civilisation."
Signed
Riaa Porcius
Intellectual Property Enforcement Division
Global Roman Empire
under the authority of Zeus
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
True... but what do you mean, "this day and age"? I think this would have always been true. Essentially, this is why so few of Imperial Roman buildings still exist in Rome; the subsequent Romans were always ripping them down for building materials (common), destroying them because they were pagan images (less common), or ripping them down so they could build something new (perhaps least common).
But, either way, a developer isn't going to be happy to find this. This is one thing we rarely have to deal with in the US, but it's pretty common in Europe, and, say, Israel. I don't know about the other parts of the Middle East, but I imagine most of the Arab governments have other things to worry about than archaeology.
Come on, give it up, that's
Remember at Pompeii there were no bodies found only cavities in the ash which archaeologists filled with plaster. Three things can be supposed by not finding bodies.
They had time to get away.
They were incinerated
Any dead left were cremated indicating that the dwellers were Indo-Europeans and not aboriginal Italians who usually buried their dead.
They found bodies at Herculaeneum, which is one of the few finds of Roman remains because Romans followed the funerial practices of their nomadic forebears -- cremation. At least, the patricians did so.
Hot Damn! That degree in Classical Studies pays off finally. I am waiting for my check.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
I disagree. Most stories, myths, legends have at least SOME basis in fact.
Take for instance the Minotaur. People in Athens were conquered by the Minoans and forced to surrender young people for sacrifice. They were to fight the Minotaur - if they survived then they might return home.
The reality as we have ascertained it is... these young people were used as performers in a bull fighting ceremony where they leapt over the bull by placing hands on the bull's head and flipping over. Also, the maze of passages which we think is the labyrinth has been found.
The Homeric epics - The Troad and the Troadians. Troy has been found. We believe we have found Charybdis (sp?). We have found a civilization that follows closely on the culture that launched a thousand ships - Mycenae, Sparta, Athens, Achaia.
As for Atlantis, the legend was said to be ancient in the time of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. No doubt the story has been embellished and altered in the retelling. You can bet there is some truth in there somewhere.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
We are fortunate to have discovered a cache of clay tablets that appear to be the remnants of the Bronze Age Jargon File, as witnessed by this sample:
hacker - n., Military slang for warrior armed with a battle axe.
cracker - n., Military slang for a warrior armed with a war hammer. Civilians eager to show off their mastery of military slang often erroneously refer to crackers as hackers, much to the chagrin of the better informed military men.
ping - n., The sound a sling stone makes when it bounces off a bronze helmet. The word is often used as a verb as well, e.g. a general might send his slingers ahead to 'ping' a wood or village and listen for the characteristic sound indicating that the enemy has troops stationed there in ambush.
pron - n., Short for Pronifagri, the Mother Goddess. The term is most often used to refer to those obese Neolithic images of Pronifagri which are still easily found by those who know where to look. (See babe in the Neolithic Jargon File.) Some males collect pron compulsively, completely filling up their barns with it, and in some cases even buying a new, larger barn just to store their huge collections.
troll - n., Someone, usually an adolescent with no social skills, who hangs around the marketplace and makes quips that are calculated to start an argument with the more staid citizens. Taken from the verb trollo, trollere, meaning "to drag a fish ashore" or "to dig in the nose with a finger". (The verb itself is a conflation of traho and uolo, with a basic sense of "aspire to drag".) Trolling is thought to be common throughout the Bronze Age Mediterranean, as it later gave rise to Greek Philosophy. (See Socrates in the Classical Jargon File.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Are they still building it?
The case against Atlantis is stronger than you present it here as being. The opening of the Timaeus presents itself as happening the day after Socrates related action of the Republic, at which point Timaeus, Critias, and Hermocrates present their version of that city. That is, they present their version of Socrates' made-up regime, changing it where they thought it needed it. Philosopher-kings are replaced with priest-kings, the communism is abandoned, and it is presented as an ancient model to follow rather than a new one.
If you look at what Critias actually says, the ancient Athenians he describes in the story are the citizens of Socrates' city -- he suggests that his story is made up, but in keeping in line with the radically more conservative character of this discussion, it is presented as being true.
That is, the story of Atlantis first told in the Timaeus and Critias is presented as being false! Later people apparently didn't get the joke.
Since the above might seem controversial to some, here's an explanation that might seem less so to them. Plato promises us three dialogues dealing with Atlantis: the Timaeus, the Critias, and the Hermocrates. We never get to see the third, and the second is unfinished. Plato was prevented from finishing by the FBI and various 19th century materialist skeptics.
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under-paid karma whore