
The Griffin Warrior Tomb Upends What We Know About the Roots of Mycenae - surlyadopter
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/golden-warrior-greek-tomb-exposes-roots-western-civilization-180961441
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blakesterz
So this is neat, and a really long read. This guy was right at the time
between theMycenaeans and the Minoans "to whom we can trace our cultural
heritage since 1450 B.C." and so he has a bunch of stuff that shows some
blending of the two times. Shows some different ideas about the roots of
Western civilization. This one grave apparently has so much stuff someone will
work on it for the rest of their career!

"There are more than 1,500 objects in all, and although the most precious
items aren’t here (they are under lock-and-key elsewhere), the scale of the
task she faces to preserve and publish these objects is nearly overwhelming.
She surveys the room: a life’s work mapped out before her."

This is a drawing of what it looks like in the grave:

[http://cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/871131223215308800/1024/10...](http://cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/871131223215308800/1024/10/scaletowidth#tl-871131223215308800;1043138249')

~~~
funthree
That sounds kind of ridiculous. Why dont they just leave it in the ground and
take pictures of it?

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masklinn
1\. because the site is a 3D accumulation, you need to remove layers to access
what's below

2\. to apply laboratory tech, you're not going to bring an electron microscope
or an NMR spectrometer down a pit

3\. to keep the artefacts from spoiling further

4\. because spoilage of the artefacts will speed up once they're uncovered and
exposed to the elements

5\. to avoid thefts and secreting of the artefacts in private collections

6\. because the state would have to confiscate all dig sites rather than
temporary make them off-limits, which people already react to quite badly
(especially when the dig site is a construction site which is rather common,
look up "rescue archaeology")

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funthree
The artifacts left in the ground will be around longer than the one put
through your laboratory. The one left in the ground will be around for
thousands of years. The one brought into your lab will be around for hundreds
of years or less.

What you say is only so certain. You dont seem as quick to innovate as others.
Why not put a building on top of it and add to its shelter? Everyone will
react poorly to eminent domain. So what? Think about the variables.

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dsp1234
_The one left in the ground will be around for thousands of years._

This is not correct. Looters will take the items long before then, as they
have for many thousands of years.

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dmreedy
Mentioned in the article, but not delved in to much, is the role that the pre-
Greek Alphabet script Linear B played in our current understanding of the
Mycenaeans, from the tablets found at Knossos and elsewhere. If you're
interested in how this puzzle has come together over the decades, and enjoy
stories about patient dedication to patterns and problem solving, John
Chadwick's 'The Decipherment of Linear B' is an excellent read, documenting
the work of Michael Ventris as he solved the SAT/constraint problem of mapping
the Linear B script to the Greek language.

~~~
Doe22
The Riddle of the Labyrinth by Margalit Fox is also a good book on this topic.
It talks a lot about the people who laid the foundation for Michael Ventris,
particularly Alice Kober.

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itp
I'm not even done reading this article, but it's already given me a great deal
to think about. I work with technology every day, and my gaze is
(understandably?) forward looking. I'm beginning to think that I don't really
know anything about history. And I'm beginning to feel like that's a mistake.

Let's say I wanted to test this theory and begin to address the deficiency.
Anyone have some suggestions on where to start? What should I start reading?

~~~
dmreedy
It's a bit of an odd one, but I can't recommend Bertrand Russell's 'History of
Western Philosophy' enough here. It's engaging and well written, as Russell
tends to be, and its focus around the philosophical development of the Western
World is a useful 'road through history'. Obviously the picture is not
comprehensive, but it is a very robust facet to examine, because of the role
philosophy plays in so many aspects of human life, from day-to-day existence
to the nature of society and politics to the methods and proto-methods of
science and religion. Plus, as a compilation/review of a massive corpus of
research and writing on history, there are plenty of excellent citations to
dive on if you find any particular subject matter interesting.

And of course, there are the usual concerns about Eurocentrism and Great Man
History. So follows the usual solutions. Don't make it the only thing you
read, and don't stop meta-analyzing.

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pjungwir
I agree that Russell's book is good, although Will Durant's _Story of
Philosophy_ is even better. :-) Of course there's no reason you can't read
both.

If you want to read some ancient philosophy directly, Plato's _Symposium_ is a
fun start. It is a bunch of guys staying up all night getting drunk and
sharing their theories about love. And yet it is philosophy. Of course
Socrates gets the last word---sort of. Also don't miss the point that one of
the speeches is by Aristophanes, a comedian.

If it's the ancient Greek world that is inspiring you, maybe read Homer or
Herodotus. Some quick notes there:

The Iliad - This takes place in the ninth year of the ten-year-long Trojan
War. The Greeks are a loose alliance of kings, led by Agamemnon, who have
sailed to Troy and are still trying to overcome its defenses. Their best
warrior, Achilles, gets mad at Agamemnon and decides to quit fighting, and
everything starts to fall apart. The poem is his story, although in many ways
it is broader, covering lots of other heroes. So you have simultaneously the
"big picture" of the war and the "little picture" of Achilles (plus some other
major figures).

Most readers find this book more challenging than the Odyssey, because there
is less fun adventure. It can be monotonous. It is chapter after chapter of
"And X threw his bronze spear and it struck Y between the teeth and came out
the back of his neck, and he fell into the dust and his armor clashed around
him." But it may not be a bad monotony. Have you listened to _Symphony of
Sorrowful Songs_ by Górecki? It is like that. But if you get to the end, and
think about Achilles's story, it is so good.

The Odyssey - Now the Trojan War is over, and the heroes are going home. This
is about how the Greek hero Odysseus gets lost, and spends _another_ 10 years
wandering. It spends some chapters on his wife and just-now-grown-up son, who
are fending off the crowd of suitors who want to marry his wife and steal his
estate. It follows Odysseus through his wild adventures---the most fun and
memorable part of the book. And it tells of how he finally returns and defeats
the suitors. (Contrary to what people usually remember, that is actually half
the book.)

These books are striking in how opposite they are, and in many ways their
style reflects their protagonist. Achilles is simple and straightforward, and
the book is too. It has that monotony, and it basically starts at the
beginning and plows forward to the end. Odysseus on the other hand is "wily"
or "tricky", full of lies and schemes. (He was the inventor of the Trojan
Horse.) And the book jumps all over, with flashbacks and stories-within-the-
story. Multiple chapters are told by Odysseus himself. Coincidentally they are
the most mythical, making you wonder if they are lies too. :-)

Some people even suggest that the first sentence---maybe even the first word
---of each poem contains the rest of the story. For the Iliad it is Achilles's
μῆνιν: wrath (or maybe sullenness---he is practically a teenager (or was when
he came to Troy)). For the Odyssey it's ἄνδρα: the man: Odysseus.

For Homer there are lots of translations. Lattimore is great and close to the
Greek, but I find Fitzgerald's to be the most enjoyable. He gives up some
precision to get more poetry, and it's like reading to a soundtrack.

The _Histories_ of Herodotus are fun too, but more history than literature. If
you get _The Landmark Herodotus_ , the maps and notes help a lot. I would just
be aware of what you're reading: ostensibly this is a history of the Persian
War, and that is the thread that connects everything together (like Achilles
in the Iliad), but Herodotus's main movement is the _digression_. Chapter 2 is
all about Egypt (its history, culture, etc.). Chapter 3 is all about the East.
Chapter 4 is all about Scythia. You get the idea. It's like he is trying to
catalog everything known or said about the world around him.

Herodotus was part of a "rationalist" movement in ancient Greece, along with
the early philosophers. He is one of the first to write in prose instead of
poetry. He is called the First Historian in part because he gives his sources.
Sometimes he'll give several versions of something, and leave it up to you to
decide. But that doesn't mean he is rational by our standards. There are
plenty of myths and legends and wild stories. You will need some patience to
finish this book, and a guide would help to draw out the gems, but it is
pretty wonderful if you're paying attention.

Good luck, and enjoy your reading! :-)

~~~
ashark
> I agree that Russell's book is good, although Will Durant's Story of
> Philosophy is even better. :-) Of course there's no reason you can't read
> both.

I found Durant to be much drier. He also covers less material, both in the
number of philosophers and the breadth of each philosopher's work. It was
still OK and I'm glad I read it, but I only kept one of the two and it wasn't
Durant. It _is_ shorter and skips most of the kinda-boring scholasticism stuff
that Russell covers thoroughly, though, so it's got that going for it.

One of the things I appreciated about Russell was his willingness to
critically engage the philosophy he's describing. I think it's why his book
catches a lot of shit for "bias", but I thought it was nice to have an expert
explain where certain parts of older philosophical work had been found to be
insupportable or problematic (and why), which parts lived on in viable modern
philosophies, _et c._

~~~
dmreedy
Agreed. There is a fantastic quote from the early pages of _History_ ;

"There is, however, a more general argument against reverence, whether for the
Greeks or for anyone else. In studying a philosopher, the right attitude is
neither reverence nor contempt, but first a kind of hypothetical sympathy,
until it is possible to know what it feels like to believe in his theories,
and only then a revival of the critical attitude, which should resemble, as
far as possible, the state of mind of a person abandoning opinions which he
has hitherto held. Contempt interferes with the first part of this process,
and reverence with the second. Two things are to be remembered: that a man
whose opinions and theories are worth studying may be presumed to have had
some intelligence, but that no man is likely to have arrived at complete and
final truth on any subject whatever. When an intelligent man expresses a view
which seems to us obviously absurd, we should not attempt to prove that it is
somehow true, but we should try to understand how it ever came to seem true.
This exercise of historical and psychological imagination at once enlarges the
scope of our thinking, and helps us to realize how foolish many of our own
cherished prejudices will seem to an age which has a different temper of
mind."

~~~
benbreen
Thank you for this. I haven't read Russell much but I like this quote so much
that I decided to put it on my reading list. In fact, I'm thinking about
putting an excerpt from it on the syllabus for a history of science course I'm
gearing up to teach this semester. A big part of why I'm an historian is
because I really value the kind of empathy that he's talking about here.

