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Science

Lost Library Returns After 2000 Years 46

Posted by michael from the mudbath dept.
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."
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Lost Library Returns After 2000 Years More

Lost Library Returns After 2000 Years

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  • Sticks of charcoal? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lazyhound ( 542184 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:27PM (#5434975)

    Why? Did they store them on top of IBM monitors?

  • Most exciting! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Hundreds of the scrolls have been carefully opened and many others could be read in the near future thanks to digital and scanning technology."

    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.
    • THere are a lot of differnt stories about how the library of alexandria was destroyed, from people buring scrolls for heat, to the christians, to the muslims, to lack of funding. Im guessing its a little bit of each.
      • Just a little bit of time with Google and you'll find the most likely answer is it could never have been the Christians, as it was gone before 20 B.C., and since Christ was born around 4 B.C., well, it's obviously not the Christians nor is it the muslims, since they were later in history than the Christians.

        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)

      by moncyb ( 456490 )

      These scrolls are not lost to us!

      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. ;-)

      And why, in the case of the Library of Alexandria?

      Religious ferver. It was burned to the ground by followers of Christ.

      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)

      by CaptainCarrot ( 84625 )
      And why, in the case of the Library of Alexandria?

      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].

      • There was not, and has ever been, any religious reason for Christians to have burned the Library of Alexandria.

        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

        • As you point out, the people doing the burning in the verse you quoted were the owners of the books themselves. They were burning them not because it's seen as a valuable thing to do in and of itself, but because they had become convinced by the preceding events (Acts 19:13-17) that the mere possession of these books was a positive danger. In context, they would appear to have more likely been books on demonology rather than astrology. The NT isn't particularly hard on astrologers as such, and certain of them in particular it speaks of with clear approval.

          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.

        • Let me put it more succinctly ... their were burning their books on socery (according to the NIV Bible)
    • actually current historians claim that no actual knowledge was lost when the library of Alexandria burned.
    • By Romans, Christians, and Muslims. Story here [umn.edu].
    • It's such a shame that Christ wasn't born at the time the Library was burned.

      All those maurading Christians with no one to follow.

      Such a shame.

  • who would have thought? (Score:3, Funny)

    by kurosawdust ( 654754 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @04:00PM (#5435252)
    It turns out that the last item checked out was "Burying a Village for Plebians"
  • collecting all of those overdue fees!

  • Overdue (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Did anyone else read this headline as "Lost books returned to library 200 years late"?

    What a fine . .

  • Libraries (Score:5, Funny)

    by CokeBear ( 16811 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @04:35PM (#5435652) Journal
    The crazy thing about libraries is that if they didn't exist and someone tried to invent them today, the publishers would have a conniption [reference.com] fit, and it would never happen. Give away knowledge for free? What are you, crazy? We'd go broke! Only a pinko/commie/liberal would come up with such a whacked out idea.

    • Re:Libraries (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Selfbain ( 624722 )
      You're confusing publishers with the recording/movie industry. There are a few publishers that even offer their books online for download for free (Baen is the largest of these I think). The publishing industry seems aware that in order to make money you must get the public interested in your product. I don't think they would oppose a library if it hadn't existed before.

      • Re:Libraries (Score:2, Interesting)

        by rocur ( 183707 )
        If only this were true. See this [washingtonpost.com] article from the Washington Post about libraries and e-books. Having been involved briefly with e-books and talking to several publishers about fair use and DRM, it became obvious to us that book publishers want what the rest of the entertainment industry wants: pay-per-view. Libraries, used book stores, and people who loan books to their friends are all part of the same problem. And while the discussions started out about e-books, they always ended up talking about books in general.
        • God and here I thought the publishing industry was a bit more enlightened. Oh well just because you publish intelligence doesn't mean you possess it.

  • What about the Latin section? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nycroft ( 653728 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @04:36PM (#5435666) Homepage
    The Villa of the Papyri, located in ancient Herculaneum, and having been a Roman city is also thought to have a Latin section, still buried beneath the mud. Since Herculaneum was buried in mud, not ash like Pompeii, it is extremely difficult to dig the rest of the villa out. Not to mention that the foundations of buildings from the modern city of Ercolano probably impede the archaeologist's progress. As for letting the public in, I think that's great. I only hope they drained the pool of funky bacteria-infested swamp water below the entrance that has built up over the years.

  • I can see it now (Score:4, Funny)

    by moc.tfosorcimgllib ( 602636 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @04:56PM (#5435850) Journal
    Classics 180 & 181 just got a hell of a lot more material.
  • Sure, they can survive 2000 years entombed under a volcanic slick, but what next:
    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.

  • Did they say... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @05:33PM (#5436177)

    ...what percentage of it is porn?

    • If it's Epicurian philosophy it'll be exalting porn!
    • Potentially lots [about.com].

      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)

    by lorax ( 2988 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @05:35PM (#5436204)
    More information about the villa and the Philodemus Project, including some pictures of the scrolls is at The Philodemus Project [ucla.edu]

  • Good news (Score:2, Insightful)

    by falsification ( 644190 )
    This is good news. I hope that once all the scrolls have been opened and published, we will finally have the complete oeuvres of such greats as Aristotle. It could change the way we think about the ancients. It probably will not be as significant an event as the rediscovery of the classics that preceded the Renaissance, however.

  • two entire levels below (Score:3, Funny)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:11PM (#5436927)
    "One of the biggest novelties uncovered is that the villa isn't just on one level, there are two entire levels below to explore,"

    Sounds like some sort of Morrowind expansion pack.

  • Will they be translating to other languages and making them availble digitally to the world?
  • With the reopening of the library after 2000 years, library employees did their best to put on a face of business as usual. But the first day kept them quite busy sending out overdue notices for many scrolls that had been checked out and never returned. There was also quite a buzz about potential integration of newer technology such as the printing press. Said one enthusiast, "There hasn't been anything this big since the wheel!"

    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."
  • "Lost library book returns after 2,000 years."

    I'd hate to see that late fee...

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