

“Roman Biro”, complete with joke, found at London building site - sorokod
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/27/joke-on-roman-souvenir-bloomberg-building-site-city-of-london
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;uk-news&#x2F;2019&#x2F;jul&#x2F;27&#x2F;joke-on-roman-souvenir-bloomberg-building-site-city-of-london
======
qrybam
If you enjoy this sort of thing and you’re ever passing through the city of
London I would highly recommend stopping the Bloomberg offices and visiting
the Temple of Mithras. A Roman historian friend of mine took me on a tour of
the temple with the British Roman Society when it first opened. He was very
impressed and told me it was one of the most faithful and high quality sites
that he’s visited anywhere; including Italy. Pity they threw the original
temple columns into the Thames when they first found it after the Blitz.

Entrance is free and right next to Bank tube station. Though I think you need
to book in advance (unless you have friends working in the Bloomberg
building).

_edit: a word_

~~~
NamTaf
Thank you, I'm there in September with a couple of days free and my liver will
appreciate the temporary reprieve from way too many real ales. This sounds
right up my alley.

------
neonscribe
"Biro" is British Isles (and elsewhere?, but not US) slang for a ballpoint
pen, from László Bíró, the inventor of the modern ballpoint pen.

~~~
mhh__
Similar to Hoover <=> Vacuum Cleaner

~~~
ncmncm
And Crapper, supposedly. But that's disputed.

~~~
Sniffnoy
That's not disputed, that's just straight-up false. The earliest record of the
word "crap" \-- and that's counting _just_ "crap", not the earlier words it's
derived from -- is in 1846, when Thomas Crapper would have been just 9 years
old.

~~~
foldingmoney
A case of nominative determinism?

------
NeedMoreTea
Somehow I expected a story of a modern biro faked up as a Roman find, rather
than the quite remarkable stylus.

~~~
pvg
Charles Dawson (of Pitdown Man fakery fame) also did some Roman artifact
faking - a fake cast iron figurine and a fake _brick_. The brick is apparently
still in the British Museum collection:

[https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/col...](https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?assetId=19061001&objectId=1360197&partId=1)

------
doctorstupid
I didn't know that the shape of the hexagonal pencil has ancient roots.

~~~
thaumasiotes
At the Roman baths in Bath, one of the objects you can see is a pair of
gambling dice found on site. The plaque charmingly notes that they are loaded.

But also interestingly, they are wooden cubes marked with exactly the same pip
pattern we still use today.

~~~
mhh__
It's amazing - and yet unsurprising, the more I think of it - to think of how
little has changed atl least locally.

Pick a random sentence from something written by Thucydides, 2.5 _millennia_
ago, and (barring the nouns) it's probably a completely usual scenario
involving people and/or groups of people.

edit: usual not unusual d'oh

~~~
ncmncm
Usual, I suspect.

~~~
mhh__
My ability to think one thing and write down another knows no bounds

------
subjectsigma
Fun article that I've seen posted around:

[http://www.pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancient/Graffiti%20from%2...](http://www.pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancient/Graffiti%20from%20Pompeii.htm)

~~~
sorokod
Great but where are the Latin originals?

~~~
thaumasiotes
Where's the Latin original in this piece? There's a pretty nice photo, but
it's not easy to read, even magnified. And the photo cuts off before the end
of the stylus.

~~~
codedokode
I was able to recognise familiar words like FORTUNA, LONGA VIA, MEMORIUM,
SACCULUS (sack).

~~~
thaumasiotes
Yeah,

    
    
        AB URBE ..... ...US TIBI .R.TUM .../
        .......UM .UI H.B..S M.MOR..M NOST/
        .... SI FORTUNA . ... ....... POSSEM /
        ....... UT.. LONGA VIA ..N SACCULUS EST .ACU/
    

isn't exactly my idea of legible Latin text, and much of that is still
guessing. I wouldn't have read LONGA without your prompting it.

And since the noun is memoria, I'd bet the inscription says MEMORIAM, not
MEMORIUM. Not that the picture shows it; those two letters appear to have been
totally lost.

------
Zenst
Question now is - what did they use to write upon this iron stylus?

~~~
bookofjoe
I was wondering precisely the same thing. Looking closely at the inscription,
it appears to have been made by using a pointed instrument with green color at
its tip, applied one dot at a time.

~~~
smsm42
Not sure if the green is original or added now to make the writings visible.
To survive 2000 years that green, whatever it is, must be super-durable.

But in general, if you hit an iron rod with another pointy iron rod, you'll
probably leave a mark. Do it many times, and you have an inscription. Probably
took a lot of work though, so the guy who owned it probably was quite busy for
some time... Maybe a long road from Rome to London :)

~~~
tsomctl
> The inscription was exceptionally difficult to read, partly due to
> corrosion, and is only legible now following work by conservators.

The article says it is made out of iron, but wrought iron is much more likely.
The Romans would have been able to make a punch out of hardened wrought iron
to mark this stylus.

------
bookofjoe
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20547540](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20547540)

------
aussieguy1234
Looks alot like the modern stylus that you might use on a tablet today

