Lost Library Returns After 2000 Years 46
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."
Sticks of charcoal? (Score:5, Funny)
Why? Did they store them on top of IBM monitors?
Re:Sticks of charcoal? (Score:1)
More to Slashdot than the Science section (Score:1)
Re:Speaking of science... (Score:1)
Re:Speaking of science... (Score:2)
--insert "in Soviet Russia" joke here--
Most exciting! (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Most exciting! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Most exciting! (Score:1)
Re:Most exciting! (Score:1)
AS much as i hate to refute good christian bashing (Score:5, Informative)
As much as i hate to refute good moslem bashing (Score:2, Insightful)
For a good summary, see here [bede.org.uk]. Basically Plutarch and Livy both wrote that Caesar was responsible, and they wrote long before the Catholic destruction in 391 of the satellite library.
Re:Most exciting! (Score:3, Interesting)
They're lost to me. I haven't seen any of them yet, nor am I sure where to look if they've been published. Will they be published? I found an old article [byu.edu] which seems to indicate so, but nothing more. I didn't search very hard though.
...and how long until Hollywood tries to declare copyright on them, and the only way you will "see" them is through the eyes of a low brow movie. ;-)
Don't worry, I'm sure the MPAA, RIAA, and Microsoft will help the modern world overcome such heresy, but with DRM rejection certificates instead of book burning. ;-)
I tried a Google search, but didn't find anything very interesting. A little more info at an article titled "Ancient maths revealed" [maths.org]. Some possibly interesting links [channel4.com] (at bottom of page). An article at BYU [byu.edu] which goes into slightly more detail about the multi-spectral imaging technology. Though your "religious ferver" comment may apply here. If BYU does create a digital archive, will they really release lesbian poetry?
Re:Most exciting! (Score:3, Informative)
Religious ferver. It was burned to the ground by followers of Christ.
You can believe that if you like, but there's very scant evidence for it no matter what Gibbon might say. There was not, and has ever been, any religious reason for Christians to have burned the Library of Alexandria. If you know of one, please cite a contemporary source. Julius Caesar is just as likely a suspect, as some ancient sources claim he set fire to the part of the city the Library occupied. So is Caliph Omar -- if you think Christians are intolerant, we've got nothing on Islam. (We should know; we've been living with them in the Middle East for about 1200 years now.)
I say "just as likely" above, but that really should be "just as unlikely". All suspects in the burning have good alibis. Fact is, no one knows what happened to the Library. The best online summary I've found of the various legends concerning its fate is here [bede.org.uk].
Re:Most exciting! (Score:1)
Acts 19:19-20: [blueletterbible.org]
Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all [men]: and they counted the price of them, and found [it] fifty thousand [pieces] of silver.
One can argue about the specific direction a Christian should take from this (should you burn only your own books or other people's too?) but there is no doubt that book burning has been seen as something of value to Christians from very nearly the beginning. The books described in Acts were probably arcana of various kinds, primarily judicial astrology and the like. To a Christian many of the books in the Royal Library would have fallen into the same category.
I don't believe that Christians were responsible for burning the Royal Library at Alexandria. But they have certainly been responsible for burning many other books--in Alexandria and elsewhere--over the past 2000 years. They have no monopoly on this behavior, though: book-burning is one of the pass-times that all tyrants, religious or secular, engage in.
To pose the question of the burning of large collections of books in Alexandria as an either-or is to forget that, given how long Alexandria has been a center of learning, there have been more than enough books there for everyone to have their fair share of burnings, hatred and destruction.
--Tom
Re:Most exciting! (Score:3, Insightful)
No doubt there were a number of such books in the Royal Library besides the historical, scientific, mathematical, engineering, and philosophical works. However, a Christian willing to torch the entire collection for the sake of the small number of occult works in it would have had to have been more fanatical than, say, St. Basil the Great, or St. John Chrysostom, or any of the multitude of Church Fathers who valued learning highly and spoke of pre-Christian philosophers in cautiously positive terms. We call this "zeal not according to knowledge", referencing Romans 10:2.
I wasn't speaking of book-burning in general, of course. But I really don't think it's fair to judge societies of Antiquity, or even the Middle Ages, by modern standards. Even the Sibyl in the days of the Roman Republic burned her own books for no better reason than that she wasn't being paid for them. It hasn't always been an act of tyranny.
Re:Most exciting! (Score:1)
Re:Most exciting! (Score:1)
it was destroyed several times (Score:2)
Re:Most exciting! (Score:1)
All those maurading Christians with no one to follow.
Such a shame.
who would have thought? (Score:3, Funny)
And Mr. Bookman is going around and (Score:2)
Overdue (Score:2, Funny)
What a fine .
Libraries (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Libraries (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Libraries (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Libraries (Score:1)
What about the Latin section? (Score:4, Interesting)
I can see it now (Score:4, Funny)
But how much longer will they last? (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:But how much longer will they last? (Score:2, Interesting)
I believe that the scrolls have been removed, by now, and they're just opening the building; and to small groups of visitors, not to lots of people at a time.
Did they say... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Did they say... (Score:2)
Re:Did they say... (Score:1)
Pompeii and Herculaneum were something akin to the Las Vegas of Rome.
Pornography is a basic metric of human economic well-being. In any society with sufficient wealth porn and prostitution are rapidly industrialized, often preying on the least advantaged members of society to the benefit of the most advantaged.
This was as true in Rome 2000 years ago as it is in America (or Tailand) today.
--Tom
more info and pictures of scrolls (Score:4, Informative)
Good news (Score:2, Insightful)
two entire levels below (Score:3, Funny)
Sounds like some sort of Morrowind expansion pack.
Translation/Scanning? (Score:2)
News article (Score:2)
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."
I read that as... (Score:2)
I'd hate to see that late fee...