Lost cities / archaeology / ancient history

As an ex-archaeologist truly tragic, but something which happens irrespective of whichever era of history or ideology.

Which prompts the question as to what's more important - the physical object,find & record or its documentation.

Normally defacing the icons of your predecessors has satisfied tyrants but that leads to objectifying sacred objects into prestige exhibition pieces sold for badly interpreted consumption.

Interestingly the heritage / museum / antiquities sector is struggling to cope with this issue as their sources of artefacts aren't exactly the purest and they are reticent to share their find sources. And yet buyers are having a field day with Libyan and other nations civil society breakdown - all to be seem in a headline exhibition in the west when things settle down. £18.50 + corporate sponsors.

Absolutely, lots of issues there beyond just destroying things--taking them out of context etc. I just find the destruction, particularly in situ, really grating. Obviously, it's just war, and most of what we find in the ground has been touched by war, but I like having a consensus, however fragile, that we still need this stuff to piece our history together a bit more. When that consensus is shattered again by some idiots living out a violent misconception, it's just an unhappy history repeating. You do wonder if we'll ever manage not to make that sort of history repeat.

I think the motive is fairly Orwellian - on some level they know their world-views is bollocks, so they want to eradicate the idea that there was ever any other.

Did you ever figure this out? I read the story too, but can't remember the details or find it on the internet and now it's bugging me.

I think that you and @DFP are probably thinking of Srinivasa Ramanujan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan

Probably one of the most famous stories about him involves the number 1729 - Ramanujan was often sick as a child and as an adult, and he came to the UK having impressed the various academics here. At one stage he was in hospital here and G. H. Hardy went to visit him in a cab with the number 1729. He told Ramanujan the cab number and hoped that it wouldn't be a bad omen as it was quite a boring number, to which Ramanujan said, "no, it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."

An extraordinary mathematical mind.

Maybe it was. I read the wiki on him when looking for info, but I was sure the story I remember was of someone being 'rescued' for want of a better word from a life of poverty and academic waste and being brought over, as a child, to the west where he stayed.

Reading through the wiki list of child prodigies just blows my (tiny, pathetic) mind.

Hmm. Ramanujan is the only one I can think of that loosely fits yours and DFP's stories, even though DFP's is a bit more mythical than yours. He's certainly the most famous candidate, and he did indeed live in poverty and academic waste due to his obsession with mathematics over anything else, but he wasn't a child when he came to England or any kind of royalty at any point.

I'm leaning towards slightly corrupted memories being at play here because I remembered him coming to the UK as a child and staying here. But the cab number story is main thing that stuck in my head, so I was able to see that the cab story guy is the same guy and my memory is just slightly faulty.

Ramanujan and Hardy

oh, there was a new page.

as you were.

Scythians marijuana bastard wars kurgan archaeology

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/05/150522-scythians-marijuana-bastard-wars-kurgan-archaeology/

Belinski asked criminologists in nearby Stavropol to analyze a black residue inside the vessels. The results came back positive for opium and cannabis, confirming a practice first reported by Herodotus. The Greek historian claimed that the Scythians used a plant to produce smoke "that no Grecian vapour-bath can surpass … transported by the vapor, [they] shout aloud."

Scythians marijuana bastard wars kurgan archaeology.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/27/old-oswestry-hill-fort-housing-development

Exciting stuff, although it seems like speculation at this point:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/12/nefertiti-tomb-king-tut-ancient-egypt-archaeology

It seems like seductive bullshit at this point.

Why don't we refer to someone like Cunobeline as the first king of Britain?

I can't find an older non-legendary 'king' before him. Brutus and Samothes etc are cool but obvs rubbish.

It seems like seductive bullshit at this point.

True, but new chambers in Tutankhamun's tomb, which seems to be a non-speculative finding, is an exciting discovery in any case.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/26/ancient-greek-palace-unearthed-near-sparta-dates-back-to-17th-century-bc

Why don't we refer to someone like Cunobeline as the first king of Britain?

No idea, what prompted the question?

Probably because we know pretty much dick about him and he definitely wasn't king of Britain.

No idea, what prompted the question?

Probably because we know pretty much dick about him and he definitely
wasn't king of Britain.

Because considering how much we know about other cultures and civilisations, the documented history of the Britain starts relatively late. I was wondering if there were people who could be considered kings, in a loose sense, before Egbert of Wessex who is probs considered the first legit king, although even he wasn't a king in the strict sense, he was just the most powerful of a bunch of kings.

the documented history of the Britain starts relatively late

Just face it. You guys are just late developers.

The descendants of our Norman overlords would prefer us to believe History started in 1066.

William Snow.
Needs a good caption, someone help me out.

I can has cheezeburger?

Correct answer.

I find this news incredibly interesting:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/nov/10/ancient-river-network-discoverd-buried-under-saharan-sand

I've long suspected (without much evidence, of course, so almost pure speculation) that there's a lot more to what is now the Sahara than we know, and that a lot of human history is buried under its sands that has, for obvious reasons, not been uncovered before. I wouldn't be at all surprised if evidence of ancient river systems was discovered further east, too. Among other things:

• Archaeologists already know of many unexplored sites around oases in western Egypt and eastern Libya; I don't think that Egypt sprang to life only from the areas that we have traditionally identified as its range.

• I think that Roman influence in Northern Africa must have extended deeper into the continent than the thin strips of land that are typically shown in history books (part of the reason for the thinness of the strips being that there is little evidence for the extent of Roman influence, not to show that it was only over that comparatively small area), and I think that the area must have been much less desertified than today. Part of this speculation is because we know from elsewhere how bad human agricultural practices, such as a lack of crop rotation or monocultures, have contributed to environmental damage.

• I'm fascinated by Timbuktu, which I don't believe was nearly as isolated in ancient times as it is today. I think it is certainly one of the most remarkable places on Earth and one that had a much bigger hinterland long ago. Perhaps we'll uncover other lost major cities under the Sahara.

It's an area of research that will be fascinating to watch in years to come.

As I said, this is all almost pure speculation, though, and awaits much more actual evidence.