There were Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Today, only one remains standing – the 4,000-year-old Great Pyramid at Giza. The human aspects of the planet erode just like the fields and hills they stand upon, leaving just over a single per cent of our history preserved for future generations. Yet, regardless of age, some peoples’ voices are louder than others in history.
“No Resemblance of Reality”
We can thank historians for the most complete records but it’s hard to overstate the role of entertainment in creating an appetite for (re)discovery.
Mythology is a theme common to movies, games, and comic books. The 2016 online slot Age of the Gods marries Greek deities like Athena, Zeus, Poseidon, Hercules, and Hades with the increasingly high-tech world of online casino gaming. More about this title can be found at https://casino.betfair.com/game/age-of-the-gods-cptn.
Similarly, archaeologists “need” Indiana Jones, to quote https://archaeoblog.com/2019/06/19/, despite the franchise showing “no resemblance of reality”.
Destruction, natural or otherwise, does have its role to play. We know that the Status of Zeus was destroyed by an earthquake in the 5th century BC, while the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus faded in the 4th century BC before the hubris of Herostratus, who traded its destruction for fame. Like the Great Pyramid, these two sites were both Ancient Wonders.
There’s a chance Pompeii, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Italy, might not have been preserved at all if Vesuvius hadn’t destroyed the site and buried it beneath the earth.
“Living” Presence
Despite its global renown and “living” presence (e.g. the Acropolis in Athens, Ancient Mycenae in Peloponnese) in modern Greece, the ancient peoples of the area don’t fare much better in the annals of history than the builders of Stone Age England.
Put another way, archaeology still needs to coax voices out of ancient stones rather than learning from neatly written texts. The Open Culture website at https://www.openculture.com/2023/03/ claims that 99% of Ancient Greek history is missing.
Julius Caesar had a hand in this disappearance (approx. 532,800-700,000 scrolls were burned when the Emperor “accidentally” ignited the Library of Alexandria in 48BC) but even a vast repository like the Library represents only a small amount of Greek knowledge. The Romans famously revered the Ancient Greeks, making plaster casts of statues to take home for themselves.
So, where did it all go? Recently, two consumer complaint letters from Ancient Babylon made the rounds on social media, partly because they connected modern people and those long lost to time (who hasn’t experienced shoddy service?). These are several thousand years old yet exist in almost the same condition as when they were written.
The texts were scrawled on clay, now hardened and ready for a museum display. The Greeks used fragile formats such as papyrus and wax tablets. In the latter case, these served a similar purpose to slate and chalk so they were erased after each use.
Overall, a simple change in how knowledge is recorded ensured it would not survive the passage of time. There’s still plenty to see of Ancient Greece today but don’t expect the ruins to talk too much.
Comments
0 comments