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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...
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...
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.
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