The Etruscans, and the Lost Library of Alexandria I am somewhat horrified by the things we have lost to history. The Etruscan culture and civilization, we know next to nothing about them today. This is horrifying; in many many ways. For one, the Emperor Claudius; he wrote AN ENTIRE DICTIONARY ON THE ETRUSCAN LANGUAGE!:push: ! He was the last...
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Rise of Empire Your Favorite General Pictures Search Pictures Resources Search Resources Login Register Search Everywhere Threads This forum This thread Search titles only By: Search Advanced search… Everywhere Threads This forum This thread Search titles only By: Search Advanced… Menu Install the app Install Home Forums History Periods Ancient History The Etruscans, and the Lost Library of Alexandria Thread starter Apocrypha8 Start date Feb 16, 2013 Tags alexandria etruscans library lost 1 2 Next 1 of 2 Go to page Go Next Last A Apocrypha8 Joined Jan 2013 35 Posts | 0+ Discussion Starter Feb 16, 2013 #1 I am somewhat horrified by the things we have lost to history. The Etruscan culture and civilization, we know next to nothing about them today. This is horrifying; in many many ways. For one, the Emperor Claudius; he wrote AN ENTIRE DICTIONARY ON THE ETRUSCAN LANGUAGE! ! He was the last known person to have been able to read Etruscan! Today, we only know a tiny tiny spec of anything about Etruscan language and their civilization. While Claudius wrote AN ENTIRE HISTORY BOOK ALSO ON THE ETRUSCANS! All of this information has been lost to history, likely in the Library of Alexandria. We have lost a great deal of everything important and likely world changing from antiquity. A short list, includes; "On Sphere-Making" - Archimedes; How to make planetariums and an orrery . Probably had information about the Antikythera Mechanism we know nothing about. The rest of the Epic Cycle - Homer and others; Homer authored only TWO of the EIGHT books in this series, and the six are lost. This left us without knowing of: The Death of Achilles, Trojan Horse, Paris being a D-Bag, and the end of the saga. This is like reading about how the Allied Powers invaded Europe, and nothing else, not knowing how or what happened afterwards. "Hermocrates" - Plato; This is The Sopranos of ancient literature. Plato's "Critias", ended mid-sentence. I repeat, IT ENDED MID SENTENCE! We can only imagine that "Hermocrates" would have concluded the fate of Atlantis, and other things that we CAN'T imagine. "Ab urbe condita libri" - Livy; This contained 142 volumes, basically a gigantic history book containing probably some of what we've always wanted to know about Rome. Only 35 volumes, give or take, survive that we know of, AND THEY INSPIRED THE FREAKING RENAISSANCE! IMAGINE WHAT WE ARE MISSING OUT ON AND TRY NOT TO CRY... a lot >.< We are missing sooooooooooooooooooooo many works that would change everything as we know it, teach us everything we wonder about ancient times, and things we haven't come to know yet. In all, it is just incredible at how we have lost an incredible amount of work that would revolutionize just about everything; Science, History, Art, Architecture, Math, and everything in between. So, discuss? Zeno Joined Jan 2010 13,691 Posts | 10+ ♪♬ ♫♪♩ Feb 16, 2013 #2 A tragic loss, perhaps, but then again, sometimes it is better to start anew, without the burden of the past weighing down on you. Like how Athens can't be modernized (subways) because there is too much history in the soil. Lucius Vorenus Joined Sep 2012 2,738 Posts | 1+ Dalmatia Interior Feb 16, 2013 #3 If we would know everything, what would we, historians do? I'm unable to find a job either way, but if we would know everything, I guess there would be no need for historians at all. Only 1-2% of written production of Roman state came to us. Most of what has come to these days were writings of byzantine writers and translation of monasteries on the West, and that implies changes in texts. But even those changed texts are almost exclusively works which don't contradict christian dogma. Thanks to rennaisance, this has changed a bit.Now, if we would have every book written in Roman era, every source available and everything they wrote translated, I assume there would be no need for writing books, or we would write books only as a synthesis of sources and general history of Rome. I think few of those books would be enough. And our interest for Rome would decline gradually. I don't want that to happen, there is certain magic in assuming, thinking about how it might happened, how it maybe was, and in that critical thinking, historians are developing their own methodology. That gives us, historians, advantage compared to any other social science. Because of lack of sources, historians are forced to use linguistics, archaeology, religion, political contexts, etc..So, not a single historian of ancient history is only historian, but is multidisciplinary researcher which is competitive in many areas. I assume that's the reason why historians are brended as smart in society. So what I'm trying to say, is that all those "lost" things, if they would appear at once, or were known to us before, would defect history, and its magic would dissapear gradually. Last edited: Feb 16, 2013 pustinyak Joined Jan 2013 829 Posts | 0+ Bactria Feb 16, 2013 #4 @Lucius bro try in Austria or Germany for a job as a historian or something connected with history. That's what I'm thinking to do. Lucius Vorenus Joined Sep 2012 2,738 Posts | 1+ Dalmatia Interior Feb 16, 2013 #5 pustinyak said: @Lucius bro try in Austria or Germany for a job as a historian or something connected with history. That's what I'm thinking to do. Click to expand... I applied for doctoral position in Munich, but I am rejected, despite very strong recommendations. I'm not sure historians are appreciated anywhere right now , recession, and all those stuffs. Anyway, I do have a job right now, I mean I'm forced to work in order to earn money, but it's not connected with history. I hope one day I'll be able to work in history field, I hold MA degree, and hopefully doctoral one day. Are you a graduate? What's the situation regarding history in Bulgaria? pustinyak Joined Jan 2013 829 Posts | 0+ Bactria Feb 16, 2013 #6 Lucius Vorenus said: Are you a graduate? What's the situation regarding history in Bulgaria? Click to expand... I finish high school in May this year and I hope to go to study in Austria in Vienna University. The chance to find a job with history there is a lot more higher than Bulgaria and whatever is the job is still better payed than here. I have a plans to start business with historical tourism here in Sofia but I need the money and the education first. Last edited: Feb 16, 2013 Lucius Vorenus Joined Sep 2012 2,738 Posts | 1+ Dalmatia Interior Feb 16, 2013 #7 pustinyak said: I finish high school in May this year and I hope to go to study in Austria in Vienna University. The chance to find a job with history there is a lot more bigger than Bulgaria and whatever is the job is still better payed than here. I have a plans to start business with historical tourism here in Sofia but I need the money and the education first. Click to expand... Good decision. I spent one semester in Poznan, Poland. I think it was the best time of my life. I hope you'll be successful in your intentions, the most important is to have a plan. And you have one! PenHand Joined Feb 2013 19 Posts | 0+ Maine Feb 16, 2013 #8 Apocrypha8 said: I am somewhat horrified by the things we have lost to history. The Etruscan culture and civilization, we know next to nothing about them today. This is horrifying; in many many ways. For one, the Emperor Claudius; he wrote AN ENTIRE DICTIONARY ON THE ETRUSCAN LANGUAGE! ! He was the last known person to have been able to read Etruscan! Today, we only know a tiny tiny spec of anything about Etruscan language and their civilization. While Claudius wrote AN ENTIRE HISTORY BOOK ALSO ON THE ETRUSCANS! So, discuss? Click to expand... I have to disagree with you. We have a surprising amount of information on the Etruscan. We have Etruscan artifacts and the Roman histories tell us much of the culture the Etruscan's had. Consider to that much of the Roman culture was a codification of Greek and Etruscan (and sundry others) But I have read excellent documentation predating the myth of Romulus and Reamus. You are correct that the phonology of the Etruscan language is all but lost, its remnants are found in Latin words and even those are few and far between. There are Wiki's on the Pyrgi tablets and I think two or three others. The Pyrgi tablets are nice because they are in Etruscan and Phoenician. Midas Joined Dec 2011 4,129 Posts | 7+ Scandinavia, Balkans, Anatolia, Hatay Feb 16, 2013 #9 Let me second the post by PenHand. We do know a lot about Etruscan. Those "mysterious" Etruscans are a product of nationalism in many cases. Were uncertainty lives, exploitation thrives. PS: I wouldn't mind having that book by Claudius though. For sure the loss of the library is one of the greatest loses of our civilization. A Apocrypha8 Joined Jan 2013 35 Posts | 0+ Discussion Starter Feb 16, 2013 #10 Midas said: PS: I wouldn't mind having that book by Claudius though. For sure the loss of the library is one of the greatest loses of our civilization. Click to expand... And that doesn't even scratch the surface, it is incomprehensible. ib-issi Joined Mar 2011 3,403 Posts | 0+ just sitting here Feb 17, 2013 #11 I think it was Higgins that was theorising that Etruscans were True Scans , and that Scans were really the Sacca-ns , from which we eventually got Saxan and Saxons.who knows but those early books that got destroyed would be so valuable . maybe a great gesture by a new Pope would be to make available on line all the books and MS in the Vatican Library to the worlds public ," before a fire of unknown origin " eventually destroys that inestimable treasure. Davidius Joined Dec 2010 5,448 Posts | 562+ Pillium Feb 17, 2013 #12 We can partly attribute the loss of knowledge about the Etruscans to [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_III]Napoleon III - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was the worlds greatest collector of Etruscan artefacts in the 19th century. In order to increase the value of the more decorative items in his collection he had many of the more prosaic items, such as inventory lists and tracts of writing, destroyed. His idea was to make Etruscan artefacts rarer and hence more valuable. Perhaps there was an Etruscan version of the Rosetta stone amongst those destroyed pieces, we will never know now. emperor of seleucid Joined Feb 2012 2,374 Posts | 5+ Arche Seleukeia Feb 17, 2013 #13 A tragic loss indeed Earl_of_Rochester Joined Feb 2011 13,605 Posts | 157+ Perambulating in St James' Park Feb 17, 2013 #14 Not to mention the gallant crusaders sacking Constantinople in 14somethingorother, we lost the vast majority of classical translations and philosophy in that and now we only have a fragment of what survived. RE the Etruscans, this may be of interest: BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Etruscan Civilisation The Etruscan Civilisation AVAILABILITY:OVER A YEAR LEFT TO LISTEN Duration: 45 minutes First broadcast: Thursday 29 September 2011 Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Etruscan civilisation. Around 800 BC a sophisticated civilisation began to emerge in the area of Italy now known as Tuscany. The Etruscans thrived for the next eight hundred years, extracting and trading copper and developing a sophisticated culture. They were skilled soldiers, architects and artists, and much of their handiwork survives today. They are also believed to have given us the alphabet, an innovation they imported from Greece. Eventually the Etruscan civilisation was absorbed into that of Rome, but not before it had profoundly influenced Roman art and religion, and even its politics. With: Phil Perkins Professor of Archaeology at the Open University David Ridgway Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of London Corinna Riva Lecturer in Mediterranean Archaeology at University College London. download here: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/iot/iot_20110929-1115a.mp3 Click to expand... And this for Alex: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00j0q53 The Library of Alexandria AVAILABILITY:OVER A YEAR LEFT TO LISTEN Duration: 45 minutes First broadcast: Thursday 12 March 2009 Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Library at Alexandria. Founded by King Ptolemy in the 3rd century BC the library was the first attempt to collect all the knowledge of the ancient world in one place. Scholars including Archimedes and Euclid came to study its grand array of papyri. the legacy of the library is with us today, not just in the ideas it stored and the ideas it seeded but also in the way it organised knowledge and the tools developed for dealing with it. It still influences the things we know and the way we know them to this day. With Simon Goldhill, Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge; Matthew Nicholls, Lecturer in Classics at the University of Reading; Serafina Cuomo, Reader in Roman History at Birkbeck College, University of London. Download here: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/ioth/ioth_20090312-0900a.mp3 Click to expand... Moros Joined Jun 2012 3,102 Posts | 13+ Feb 18, 2013 #15 We don't know what we've lost. So how do we know that it was anything special, and worth having? K KommandantPerry Joined Feb 2013 145 Posts | 0+ Minot Airforce base Feb 18, 2013 #16 Yes who knows what the "gallant" crusaders destroyed when they sacked constantinople....one of those things in history that just enrages me. And is why when i play Eu3 as byzantium i always destroy venice, then rename the city and province. Niki86 Joined Jan 2011 1,190 Posts | 0+ Balkans Feb 18, 2013 #17 The enigma of Italy's ancient Etruscans is finally unravelled | World news | The Guardian Midas Joined Dec 2011 4,129 Posts | 7+ Scandinavia, Balkans, Anatolia, Hatay Feb 18, 2013 #18 Moros said: We don't know what we've lost. So how do we know that it was anything special, and worth having? Click to expand... Statistically and from refferences you know you lost A LOT. davu Joined Jun 2010 4,078 Posts | 3+ Retired - This Mountain isn't on a Map Feb 18, 2013 #19 Originally Posted by ib-issi new Pope would be to make available on line all the books and MS in the Vatican Library to the worlds public Click to expand... now that would be a fantastic milepost ---- one could only wonder who's research would be upended if that were to happen --- i mean, after all the centuries, we learn the "templars" were found "innocent" of heresy --- my my my Moros Joined Jun 2012 3,102 Posts | 13+ Feb 18, 2013 #20 To speculate on what we don't have, based on little more than a few titles and the assumption that vast amounts of destroyed written material must have been made up of individual unique works that equalled or surpassed what has survived to today, is romanticism. The Library of Alexandria was not the only repository full of writing in ancient times, although it is the most famous. How much of what was in Alexandria was unique and didn't exist elsewhere is unknown. Works failed to survive not just because the Library burnt down, but also because they lost their relevance or value (if they had any in the first place). There might have been works that would revolutionise the way we interprete history if they were discovered again, but we just don't know. The same would apply to lost architecture, sculpture, paintings, clothes fashion, etc. Its hard to assess what you don't have. The loss of the Library of Alexandria definitely makes the quantity of our knowledge less, but the quality of that knowledge might not automatically be greater. 1 2 Next 1 of 2 Go to page Go Next Last Login or Register / Reply Similar History Discussions C Etruscans in Greece Calebxy Feb 15, 2021 General History Replies 3 Views 281 Feb 17, 2021 Calebxy C Etruscans in the late sixth century BCE Calebxy Aug 13, 2020 Ancient History Replies 4 Views 406 Aug 16, 2020 Calebxy What happened to the Etruscans? Christopher The Great Jul 11, 2020 Ancient History Replies 8 Views 778 Jul 17, 2020 Olleus M Etruscans. Open matveenko Jan 5, 2019 Ancient History Replies 9 Views 815 Jan 16, 2019 matveenko Home Forums History Periods Ancient History Historum Founded in 2006, Historum is a history forum dedicated to history discussions and historical events. 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