Giant Greek Tomb Discovered

schwit1 writes Archaeologists have uncovered the largest tomb ever discovered in Greece and think it is linked to the reign of Alexander the Great. "The tomb, dating to around 300 BC, may have held the body of one of Alexander's generals or a member of his family. It was found beneath a huge burial mound near the ancient site of Amphipolis in northern Greece. Antonis Samaras, Greece's prime minister, visited the dig on Tuesday and described the discovery as 'clearly extremely significant'. A broad, five-yard wide road led up to the tomb, the entrance of which was flanked by two carved sphinxes. It was encircled by a 500 yard long marble outer wall. Experts believe a 16ft tall lion sculpture previously discovered nearby once stood on top of the tomb."

Comments

meh

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be a requrement for people to include all of the measurments in metrics so people shouldn't be requred to dechipher how many feetsies are there in a yard and how much that is in crows wings, car tyres, pencil lenghts, cat paws etc.

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

OK.
"It is ordained that 3 grains of barley dry and round do make an inch, 12 inches make 1 foot, 3 feet make 1 yard, 5 yards and a half make a perch, and 40 perches in length and 4 in breadth make an acre."

Oh it's based on barley, i thought the whole system is flawed but now i know it all makes sense, so next time just write 90.9090909090909090909090909 perches and I'll know thats like 499,99999999 in yards (Sorry 500 doesnt divide by 5 and a half), just multiply that by three and then 12 and get inches, now multiply by three, whip out that barley sack and start to line them up to get a seeable reference.

Thanks man.

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

For the useless endeavor of catering to 5% of the world population? No, thanks, we are quite happy using the SI and base 10 conversions. Also, it comes with the benefit of NOT needing to state the country issuing a specific measurement or whether is intended to use at sea or land (not to mention funny prefixes like gross).

I can understand if there were any clear benefit to use the old imperial units, but there is none (zero, zilch, nada, other than nationalistic pride) and lots of downsides, so is about time you guys enter the 20 century and make life simpler for everyone.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

A few more photos here: http://news.in.gr/culture/article/?aid=1231340622

Re:meh

[TapeCutter]

All you need to know is that a greek giant is buried under the mound so obviously the giant was larger than an average greek but smaller than the mound. His exact height in barley grains will have to remain a "known unknown" until they dig him up.

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

For authenticity, the author should have used ancient Greek measurements instead.

A broad, 2.73 AtG wide road led up to the tomb, the entrance of which was flanked by two carved sphinxes. It was encircled by a 273 AtG long marble outer wall. Experts believe a 2.9 AtG tall lion sculpture previously discovered nearby once stood on top of the tomb.

Assuming that AtG was 5' 6" tall.

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be a requirement for people leaving primary school to be able to convert units.

It often is. I recall that we briefly mentioned imperial units in history class in primary school. A foot is 296.904mm but that wouldn't apply here since we are talking about Greek imperial units so we should probably use the Greek foot (pous) of 308.2 mm.
That is the thing with imperial units, every empire has their own. Once people started dealing with more than just the next nation and started to travel a little bit further the conversion became really complex. Metric would never have been adopted is imperial units had been usable.
The only thing that makes it possible to use imperial units at all today is that everyone except one group has been abandoned in favor of metric.

Re:meh

[PPalmgren]

If you want rough estimates, its simple. If its in feet, divide by 3 for meters. If its in yards, yards = meters. No, its not perfect, but its close enough, within 2% margin of error.

Its not going to change any time soon, and no amount of bitching is going to make it change any time soon, so get over it. I find it funny that the bitching usually comes from Europe, where language is about 'cultural identity' but you have to speak english to be functional in larger businesses. Using the same logic, we should eliminate Dutch, Italian, Greek, Finnish, Swedish, and so on because they're a minority method of communication.

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be a requirement for people leaving primary school to be able to use metric units so as to be able to communicate with the rest of the world. And among themselves actually, while in the US I experimented by asking Americans questions like "how many ounces to the gallon" etc. Actually that particular one nobody ever answered correctly (most common answer was 64 when it is 128 - or 160 if you are from the UK and using the imperial versions).

Re:meh

[Sockatume]

You really should've called them out on calling it "BC" rather than "BCE" while you were at it. What's pedantry without thoroughness?

Re:meh

[rossdee]

Officially, Britain uses the metric system. It is after all part of the EU

Other British Commonwealth countries use the metric system, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, PNG, Bahamas, Samoa, Tonga,

Re:meh

[Reaper9889]

I think your point count against you. /. is fairly large. It would be reasonable to apply the same standards as for a large business. Hence, you should standardize your communication. In this case that means English and metric. It is ok that you use it amongst yourself but it would be nice of you to try to keep it only amongst yourself :) The standard custom in Europe is more or less that if someone wouldnt understand otherwise, you speak English (at least for the larger places I have worked). Similarly, it would be nice if you wrote in metric if people wouldn't understand otherwise (which I think it can be assumed that some wont on a page as big as /.).

I personally do not mind yards and feet too much but I dislike miles since it depends on the country.

Re:meh

[denzacar]

A plethora.

Re:meh

[Oligonicella]

We do use metric. We also like to retain our Anglo-Saxon/Roman system. We don't feel like it taxes our brains like you all feel it taxes yours. Those who don't use the metric system in their daily lives tend to not convert easily. Those who do, can. We find it amusing that it generates such apoplexy in those abroad who can't.

Re:meh

[amicusNYCL]

There's another article here, which contains this quote from the prime minister:

This is a monument with unique features: A surrounding peribolos of 497 meters, almost a perfect circle carved in Thassos marble. The Lion of Amphipolis is 5.20 meters high; let’s imagine it as being on the top of the tomb

That article also shows a picture with a partial glimpse of the entrance. This article from the same site has a picture of the lion, and the video down below is basically a slideshow of pictures of the tomb site. There's another article here with another exterior picture. The site of ancient Amphipolis is here, on the land surrounded by the river (you can zoom in and see the ruins of the acropolis). Based on the pictures in the articles, it looks like the tomb itself is just northeast of the site, here.

I'm not an archaeologist, I just play one on the internet.

Re:meh

[RandomFactor]

So Denzacar, would you say it has a plethora of Barley Grains?

Re:meh

[PPalmgren]

I understand the frustration, hell, my first course in egineering, they devoted a big chunk to unit conversions. I just get aggrivated when year after year, story after story, someone starts complaining about units and we get a huge back-patting session where everyone congratulates each for not being from the US. It takes less time to press ctrl+t and type '5ft 6in to cm' in the top bar for a translation than it does to type out a whiny soap-box post like the type we commonly get.

There are two facts that need to be taken into acount when it comes to unit conversions. First, a story that targets a local demographic is usually going to be in the units that demographic relates to. This was a UK story, but even still, imperial units are commonly used even if they are 'officially' converted, hence the yards. A different matter could be made for asking the Slashdot editors to add them to summaries, but that's another tree to bark up. Also, partially in relation to the first point, a unit conversion of the US will probably not be fully implemented in our lifetime. Canada and the UK converted decades ago and the non-standard measures are still fairly common in everyday language and food.

I just get aggrivated when a story's comment section gets overrun with this crap. I find it obnoxious and off-topic. I don't ask for a conversion for perspective when people's heights or temperatures are posted in metric, I convert myself and expect others to not be lazy.

Re:meh

[OhSoLaMeow]

AtG was 7'4" tall.

Oh wait. You weren't referring to Andres the Giant.
Never mind.

meh

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be a requirement for people leaving primary school to be able to convert units.

One extra photo

[MRe_nl]

Sort of
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...

Re:The tomb of Geryon!

[nava68]

Since Roxana (Alexanders wife) and his son Alexander IV were killed in Amphipolis by one of the Diadochen it could be either one of them or the Diadochen (Cassandos) who was buried in that tomb. Btw the excavation is running now for more than one year - hardly news except that Samaras went there for a visit and archeologist plan to enter within the next few months...

Geek tomb?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the first moment I thought they found someones petrified basement

Misread title

[Anonymous Coward]

I almost spewed my coffee all over my keyboard when I read this the first time. I read: "Giant GEEK tomb discovered".

Is it tomb of the second letter of greek alphabet?

[eye_blinked]

Internetogists have discovered a vast tomb that they believe is connected with the reign of Dice, who conquered vast swathes of the ancient Internet. The tomb, dating to around 2014AD, may have held the archive of pre-beta slashdot. It was found beneath a huge burial mound near the ancient site of Andover.net in northern Cyberspace. Rick Astley visited the dig on Tuesday and described the discovery as "clearly extremely significant". A broad, five Tb pipe led up to the tomb, the entrance of which was flanked by two carved goatse.

Yes and no

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a requirement leaving primary school to be able to do a division. it is not a requirement to know what feet or yard or stones or furlong are. When you have an international audience, it is polite to use the international measurement methods that about 95% of the world use maybe put it in parenthesis near the medieval unit. like say 500 yards (about 450 meters).
 
This has an ecological impact by the way, because if thousand of people google "500 yards to meter" the electricity and time lost, would have been better spent on something else. If one person the submitter does it it is maybe 5 second lost to him and no big deal. If say 10000 persons do it, guessestimate international audience slashdot, that's 50000 seconds lost, electricity, bandwidth usage and so forth. Not a lot but cumulated over the years ? And jsut because the submitter does not want to make 1 step, he forces those loss on everybody else

Only Major Site Not Stolen From

[Kagato]

One of the problems with the historical sites in Greece is so many of the large ones have been stolen from over the centuries. Want to see the full Parthenon? Better book a trip to the Vatican, Louvre in Paris and the British Museum what's still left for public viewing. Various conquers and rulers have been selling off bits and pieces of greek history for as long as Europeans have been collecting art.

Better pictures of the tomb

[sls1j]

Here is a better article with actual pictures

Re:I admit ignorance about archeological stuff,

[jfengel]

Both the wall and the road (and the entrance) were buried as well.

They did know that something was there: it was obvious that this was a man-made hill. They didn't know how significant it was, and so it wasn't until now that they put together the funding and manpower to go look.

This.

[DarthVain]

I went on a Mediterranean tour a few years back. An ancient history fan, visited all the big ruins and historical sites. I was disappointed.

1) Pretty much everything has been "restored". Very little is actually original. Most have tried to recreate as close as possible, but it is exactly that, a recreation.
2) One the most disappointing and disgusting things things I went to was the Vatican. Basically they looted and pillaged all the "Pagan" temples and historical sites of anything valuable to construct their own monuments. Valuable is pretty loose term considering the length of time it was done over. Stuff like marble and bronze and the like were the first to go, but even using sites as a convenient source of stone got pillaged. Looking at the astounding amount of wealth in the Vatican and the amount of history destroyed just makes me sick.

Though while the Vatican is a extreme example they are not alone, and in general the practice was pretty ubiquitous. Hadrian's Wall which was a HUGE artifact is basically gone, and many historians believe that it was just a convenient source of local stone that over time just got purposed in various local buildings. Though that seems a bit less villainous than the intentional destruction of historical sites for valuable material.