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Lost Library Returns After 2000 Years
Technodummy writes "An update on Reading the Ancient Papyri.
The long-buried Villa of the Papyri, one of Italy's richest Roman villas famed for its library of ancient scrolls, opened to the public this weekend almost 2,000 years after it was submerged in volcanic mud.
The scrolls, which looked like sticks of charcoal when they were first discovered, have mostly turned out to be works of Greek epicurean philosophy from the first century BC."
Why? Did they store them on top of IBM monitors?
"Hundreds of the scrolls have been carefully opened and many others could be read in the near future thanks to digital and scanning technology."
These scrolls are not lost to us!
Who among us has not thought bitterly of the 532,800 scroll of two-three hundred years before our era that comprised the Library of Alexandria?
Today only a small portion of its catalogue remains to tease us with lost knowedge.
Everything that has been salvaged of Greek antiquity is a tiny fraction of what we know they had.
And why, in the case of the Library of Alexandria?
Religious ferver. It was burned to the ground by followers of Christ.
It turns out that the last item checked out was "Burying a Village for Plebians"
collecting all of those overdue fees!
Did anyone else read this headline as "Lost books returned to library 200 years late"?
.
What a fine .
It is making fun of the recent post on IBM monitors overheating. You should already be laughing.
The crazy thing about libraries is that if they didn't exist and someone tried to invent them today, the publishers would have a conniption fit, and it would never happen. Give away knowledge for free? What are you, crazy? We'd go broke! Only a pinko/commie/liberal would come up with such a whacked out idea.
Reality has a liberal bias
The Villa of the Papyri, located in ancient Herculaneum, and having been a Roman city is also thought to have a Latin section, still buried beneath the mud. Since Herculaneum was buried in mud, not ash like Pompeii, it is extremely difficult to dig the rest of the villa out. Not to mention that the foundations of buildings from the modern city of Ercolano probably impede the archaeologist's progress. As for letting the public in, I think that's great. I only hope they drained the pool of funky bacteria-infested swamp water below the entrance that has built up over the years.
Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time is enemy action.
THere are a lot of differnt stories about how the library of alexandria was destroyed, from people buring scrolls for heat, to the christians, to the muslims, to lack of funding. Im guessing its a little bit of each.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Classics 180 & 181 just got a hell of a lot more material.
Sure, they can survive 2000 years entombed under a volcanic slick, but what next:
Warm temperatures
Dry humidity
Ultraviolet light
I sure hope they know what they're doing, or they'll be left with a pile of lightly stained flakes if they're not careful.
YAW.
Your head of state is a corrupt weasel, I hope you're happy.
Unless, of course, you were female.
-- Cerebus
--insert "in Soviet Russia" joke here--
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
More information about the villa and the Philodemus Project, including some pictures of the scrolls is at The Philodemus Project
This is good news. I hope that once all the scrolls have been opened and published, we will finally have the complete oeuvres of such greats as Aristotle. It could change the way we think about the ancients. It probably will not be as significant an event as the rediscovery of the classics that preceded the Renaissance, however.
Sounds like some sort of Morrowind expansion pack.
Will they be translating to other languages and making them availble digitally to the world?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Just a little bit of time with Google and you'll find the most likely answer is it could never have been the Christians, as it was gone before 20 B.C., and since Christ was born around 4 B.C., well, it's obviously not the Christians nor is it the muslims, since they were later in history than the Christians.
For a good summary, see here. Basically Plutarch and Livy both wrote that Caesar was responsible, and they wrote long before the Catholic destruction in 391 of the satellite library.
Got Wisdom?
By Romans, Christians, and Muslims. Story here.
With the reopening of the library after 2000 years, library employees did their best to put on a face of business as usual. But the first day kept them quite busy sending out overdue notices for many scrolls that had been checked out and never returned. There was also quite a buzz about potential integration of newer technology such as the printing press. Said one enthusiast, "There hasn't been anything this big since the wheel!"
Already, three patrons have been banned from the library for a month, after they were caught chewing gum inside. Two more were subject to five lashings each for talking too loudly.
Asked about employee training, one manager sighed, "It's been a real pain in the #$#*#*$. Kids just don't know their Roman numerals today."
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
"Lost library book returns after 2,000 years."
I'd hate to see that late fee...