New Yorker Sunday Reading "The Ancient World"

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jeidsath
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New Yorker Sunday Reading "The Ancient World"

Post by jeidsath »

https://www.newyorker.com/books/double- ... -world/amp

There are articles on a number of items of interest here, including the Antikythera mechanism.
Finally, as Paul Keyser told me, “Classical scholarship is very literary, and focusses on texts—such as the writing of Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, or Horace, or it is old-fashioned and historical, and focusses on leaders and battles, through the texts of Herodotus and Thucydides, or it is anthropological-archeological, and focusses on population distributions and suchlike. So when an archeological discovery about ancient technology arrives, it does not fit, because it’s new, it’s scientific, and it’s not a text. Plus, there is only one such device, and unique items tend to worry scholars and scientists, who quite reasonably prefer patterns and larger collections of data.”
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Cathexis
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Re: New Yorker Sunday Reading "The Ancient World"

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No 'dis to you, Joel,

But I'm not sure if I'd take this article as complimentary to Classicists or others. I'm even tempted
to consider whether you're posting this with a "wink" as well. This artifact has been with the modern
world since 1901 and it's precisely these befuddled scholars who've been able to reach our current
understanding of the device. Despite many You-tube Fortean-style themed videos to the contrary,
it seems not to be the mystery some have made it out to be; perhaps aided by the Greek inscriptions
on it that make its usage pretty obvious (something conspiracy theorists typically omit mentioning)Doh!
In fact, it appears that it was the intersection of later, more modern technology and the efforts of these
same kerfuffled scholars that provided our current understanding of it in the first place.


But again, no offense intended,


Andrew/Cathexis
Romani ite Domum

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