
“I fell down a bit of a ruins research rabbit-hole” - caio1982
https://twitter.com/paulmmcooper/status/933753595174031361
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agumonkey
readable version
[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/933753595174031361](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/933753595174031361)

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rz2k
Mark Twain's _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur 's Court_ (1889) has a lot
of fun with irreverence toward hermits, especially one on a 60-ft pillar:

> His stand was a pillar sixty feet high, with a broad platform on the top of
> it. He was now doing what he had been doing every day for twenty years up
> there—bowing his body ceaselessly and rapidly almost to his feet. It was his
> way of praying. I timed him with a stop watch, and he made 1,244 revolutions
> in 24 minutes and 46 seconds. It seemed a pity to have all this power going
> to waste. It was one of the most useful motions in mechanics, the pedal
> movement; so I made a note in my memorandum book, purposing some day to
> apply a system of elastic cords to him and run a sewing machine with it. I
> afterward carried out that scheme, and got five years’ good service out of
> him; in which time he turned out upward of eighteen thousand first-rate tow-
> linen shirts, which was ten a day. I worked him Sundays and all; he was
> going, Sundays, the same as week days, and it was no use to waste the power.
> These shirts cost me nothing but just the mere trifle for the materials—I
> furnished those myself, it would not have been right to make him do that—and
> they sold like smoke to pilgrims at a dollar and a half apiece, which was
> the price of fifty cows or a blooded race horse in Arthurdom.

[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/86/86-h/86-h.htm#c22](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/86/86-h/86-h.htm#c22)

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JoeDaDude
Tom Cahill, in his book "Mysteries of the Middle Ages" [1] explains explains
how in ancient times, people had very different attitudes towards hermits,
stylites, and anchorites:

"Though often represented as a period of repression... the Middle Ages offered
- at least in religious roles - more options than now allowed. ...in the
Middle Ages such social oddities were welcomed and assigned a place of honor.
While the rest of us went about our worried lives, they prayed for us
continually, speaking to God on our behalf."

[1]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=_vikHFhqIwIC&source=gbs_na...](https://books.google.com/books?id=_vikHFhqIwIC&source=gbs_navlinks_s)

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jpster
I'm impressed by the way he used Twitter as a table of contents to his own
writing.
[https://twitter.com/PaulMMCooper/status/915959278028148736](https://twitter.com/PaulMMCooper/status/915959278028148736)

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pavel_lishin
A question for any passer-by historians: how did they deal with urination and
defecation? Was there a secondary bucket system for that? Or do you just know
to not approach the north side of the pillar?

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oh_sigh
I can't speak authoritatively, but most likely have a bucket which is lowered
every now and then. These guys weren't claiming to be foodless, waterless,
shitless divine beings.

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freddie_mercury
For those looking to see more on this kind of thing....

Simon of the Desert is a famous 1965 foreign film by a famous director (Luis
Bunuel) that is loosely based on the life of one of these Stylite ascetics.

It is a product of both the 1960s and Mexican magical realism (like Juan
Rulfo) so expect it to be weird and you won't be disappointed.

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incompatible
It's surprising that any part of the temple survived at all, given the early
Christians' destruction of "pagan" temples.

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moomin
That’s a vast oversimplification. Go to Egypt and you’ll find a large number
of Egyptian temples adapted to Christian use.

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fiatjaf
So how do these people got on the top of these pillars? What did they do there
all day?

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paganel
> What did they do there all day?

From the wiki page on Simeon Stylites, the most famous of these type of saints
(and I think the first one who chose to live on top of a pillar)
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simeon_Stylites](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simeon_Stylites)):

> Even on the highest of his columns, Simeon was not withdrawn from the
> world.[citation needed] If anything, the new pillar attracted even more
> people, both pilgrims who had earlier visited him and sightseers as well.
> Simeon was available each afternoon to talk with visitors. By means of a
> ladder, visitors were able to ascend within speaking distance. It is known
> that he wrote letters, the text of some of which have survived to this day,
> that he instructed disciples, and that he also lectured to those assembled
> beneath.[9] He especially preached against profanity and usury. In contrast
> to the extreme austerity that he practiced, his preaching conveyed
> temperance and compassion, and was marked with common sense and freedom from
> fanaticism.

Interestingly enough there is a similar character in season 2 of the HBO TV-
show "The Leftovers", which I highly recommend (the show, that is). Here's its
IMDB page:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2699128/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2699128/)

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bhaak
Also interesting is that the reason given in the Wikipedia article why he
lived on top of a pillar was not to be closer to God but to be further away
from people that would otherwise disturb his daily routine.

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fiatjaf
That to be on pillar would put him closer to God is a stupid idea only anti-
Christians would think of.

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CharlesMerriam2
This shows the joy of our profession; find a loose thread and pull it.

~~~
lostlogin
Which profession is that? In the last week I’ve read great posts by a pilot, a
beekeeper, an HVAC engineer, a programmer and someone who does something with
economic forecasting.

~~~
arthurcolle
Internet person

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ant6n
...the pay is terrible. I've barely gotten any retweets/karma/clicks in days.

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sn9
Monty Python would have had a field day with this.

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ChuckMcM
Fascinating story and a reminder o how poor a fit Twitter is for long form
writing. I would love to read the atlasobscura version of that thread.

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weberc2
I'm glad it was condensed and terse. I dislike skimming through long-form
writing to get at the interesting bits.

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DC-3
Interesting stuff, but is there a more obnoxious way to tell a story than in a
twitter thread? I was hoping that Medium was starting to solve this problem,
but clearly not everyone has adopted it.

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mikeash
What does Medium do that the million other blog services don't in this
respect?

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levesque
It annoys the crap out of non-logged in users!

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WillPostForFood
Yes, Medium starts with a modal nag screen, then has a sticky header and
footer which breaks paging (Mac/Chrome). Medium has totally lost any claim to
being better for readability.

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eitland
Also they still haven't figured out consistent urls.

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pbhjpbhj
Writer notices that a 1800s picture of the temple of Jupiter at Olympus had an
addition above the pillars that isn't there in other images nor in the temple
reproductions. Turns out it was a dwelling for Christian ascetics, the
dwelling being censored from some images and removed to return the ruins to
their "original".

Think that's about it, from a scan through.

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StavrosK
It's Zeus, not Jupiter, and it's in Athens, not Olympus.

