Lost Languages Discovered in One of the Oldest Continuously Run Libraries(smithsonianmag.com)
smithsonianmag.com
Lost Languages Discovered in One of the Oldest Continuously Run Libraries
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/long-lost-languages-found-manuscripts-egyptian-monastery-180964698/?no-ist
90 comments
Can we crowdfund a militia to protect and secure archives for digitizing in conflict zones? We are losing too much priceless history to fools over ego.
This comment is a gem of colonialist thought.
Those "conflict zones" are also generally the sovereign territory of the people who live there, who are generally one half of the "fools" you mentioned (their neighbors being generally the other half).
The "ego" they have is generally a desire to keep their sovereign territory--their homelands, which are frequently the same places in which their ancestors produced the "archives" you want to "protect and secure."
Those people have a right to decide what to do about the destruction of their cultural artifacts, because they are people and have agency. They can fight, they can ask for help from their allies, they can do any number of things.
If they don't prioritize the preservation of their culture, that's unfortunate, but it's also their business. If they decide to destroy artifacts of their culture rather than let them fall into invaders' hands (sound familiar?), that's tragic, but it's still their business.
Your suspicion of value in their cultural output does not entitle you to pay armed men to swoop in and take their "priceless history," no matter how noble you think your intentions are.
Those "conflict zones" are also generally the sovereign territory of the people who live there, who are generally one half of the "fools" you mentioned (their neighbors being generally the other half).
The "ego" they have is generally a desire to keep their sovereign territory--their homelands, which are frequently the same places in which their ancestors produced the "archives" you want to "protect and secure."
Those people have a right to decide what to do about the destruction of their cultural artifacts, because they are people and have agency. They can fight, they can ask for help from their allies, they can do any number of things.
If they don't prioritize the preservation of their culture, that's unfortunate, but it's also their business. If they decide to destroy artifacts of their culture rather than let them fall into invaders' hands (sound familiar?), that's tragic, but it's still their business.
Your suspicion of value in their cultural output does not entitle you to pay armed men to swoop in and take their "priceless history," no matter how noble you think your intentions are.
As someone from a country who has been a colony of a handful of other countries during its history, I understand and can relate to your argument.
Also, as someone from a continent that still has millitias funded by other countries, I find the idea of funding a militia appalling, specially if the purpose is not to at least try and save people, but to save cultural artifacts ...
That said, I think you are oversimplifying things a bit in your comment.
This part:
>Those people have a right to decide what to do about the destruction of their cultural artifacts, because they are people and have agency.
Think of how even in geographically small countries, there is often cultural heterogeneity, and you can see that it's not easy to say if those deciding to destruct some cultural artifact actually "own" it. I think this is specially important since cultural artifacts tell a culture's history (books are the most obvious example, but we are able to learn basic things about pre-historic cultures by looking at their non textual artifacts), and the aftermath of a war typically includes the winner rewriting history, which is something that destroying the loser's artifacts makes easier.
Let me finish with a quote I identify a lot with, from Lukas Ligeti[1]: "It makes no sense to group people together according to superficial characteristics. There are no majorities in the world: we are, each and every one of us, a minority of one"
[1] "Secret Instruments, Secret Destinations", from ARCANA II
Also, as someone from a continent that still has millitias funded by other countries, I find the idea of funding a militia appalling, specially if the purpose is not to at least try and save people, but to save cultural artifacts ...
That said, I think you are oversimplifying things a bit in your comment.
This part:
>Those people have a right to decide what to do about the destruction of their cultural artifacts, because they are people and have agency.
Think of how even in geographically small countries, there is often cultural heterogeneity, and you can see that it's not easy to say if those deciding to destruct some cultural artifact actually "own" it. I think this is specially important since cultural artifacts tell a culture's history (books are the most obvious example, but we are able to learn basic things about pre-historic cultures by looking at their non textual artifacts), and the aftermath of a war typically includes the winner rewriting history, which is something that destroying the loser's artifacts makes easier.
Let me finish with a quote I identify a lot with, from Lukas Ligeti[1]: "It makes no sense to group people together according to superficial characteristics. There are no majorities in the world: we are, each and every one of us, a minority of one"
[1] "Secret Instruments, Secret Destinations", from ARCANA II
You're right that I simplified heterogeneity, but my point wasn't so much that the preservation or destruction of culture should be left to a population of certain ownership--it's that these things should not be left to mercenaries hired by outsiders with a sense of global "human" entitlement.
Ownership and responsibility are really complex topics. The notion that you shouldn't rent a bunch of goons to steal books from your co-worker's house just because you think he's not taking care of them properly is not complex.
Ownership and responsibility are really complex topics. The notion that you shouldn't rent a bunch of goons to steal books from your co-worker's house just because you think he's not taking care of them properly is not complex.
The notion becomes a lot more complex if those books are the only remaining copies.
This comment is a gem of nationalist thought.
When the Bamiyan buddhas were dynamited, exactly whose culture were the Taliban "preserving"?
It is entirely reasonable to believe that culture and history have an importance independent of petty, local squabbles. Crowd funding militia may well be questionable but to demean the sentiment as colonialist is pointlessly insulting.
When the Bamiyan buddhas were dynamited, exactly whose culture were the Taliban "preserving"?
It is entirely reasonable to believe that culture and history have an importance independent of petty, local squabbles. Crowd funding militia may well be questionable but to demean the sentiment as colonialist is pointlessly insulting.
> When the Bamiyan buddhas were dynamited, exactly whose culture were the Taliban "preserving"?
Their own.
> It is entirely reasonable to believe that culture and history have an importance independent of petty, local squabbles.
Calling it “reasonable” elevates it to a level of objective neutrality to which it is not entitled. That view is simply it's own set of cultural values, which, while perhaps fairly widespread at the moment, are no more universal or grounded in reason than any others.
Their own.
> It is entirely reasonable to believe that culture and history have an importance independent of petty, local squabbles.
Calling it “reasonable” elevates it to a level of objective neutrality to which it is not entitled. That view is simply it's own set of cultural values, which, while perhaps fairly widespread at the moment, are no more universal or grounded in reason than any others.
Is the scientific method just a cultural value?
> Is the scientific method just a cultural value?
The value attached to particular outputs, such as those that might be supported by preservation of cultural artifacts, is unmistakably a cultural value.
The value attached to particular outputs, such as those that might be supported by preservation of cultural artifacts, is unmistakably a cultural value.
I don't think you understand what nationalism is. I admit that my reply could be read as a tacit endorsement of tribalism, but there's nothing nationalist about it.
You should not presuppose that conflicts are "petty, local squabbles." Minimizing language like that reinforces the mindset that the mighty are justified in interfering in the sovereign destiny of a people.
Anyway, my reply was thoughtful, not pointlessly insulting. If you'd like to engage on this beyond the invocation of the Taliban bogeyman, I'm happy to. But if you're just gonna presume that I'm equating the exercise of sovereign rights with wholesale destruction, I'm not interested.
You should not presuppose that conflicts are "petty, local squabbles." Minimizing language like that reinforces the mindset that the mighty are justified in interfering in the sovereign destiny of a people.
Anyway, my reply was thoughtful, not pointlessly insulting. If you'd like to engage on this beyond the invocation of the Taliban bogeyman, I'm happy to. But if you're just gonna presume that I'm equating the exercise of sovereign rights with wholesale destruction, I'm not interested.
> I don't think you understand what nationalism is.
I was misusing the term nationalist in a literary device in order to deliberately mimic your misuse of the word colonialist. I wasn't so condescending as to assume you didn't know what colonialist meant so I assumed its misuse was deliberate too.
> my reply was thoughtful, not pointlessly insulting.
My mistake. It's rare to see colonialist used as a term of endearment.
> sovereign destiny / sovereign rights
I guess this is the meat of the point. See I don't believe that just because someone in temporarily in charge of a country that they should have carte blanche to do whatever they fancy. Now, in the case of the Coptic monasteries in the Sinai, there is no threat from the present government. If, say, the Sinai Insurgency escalated and the monasteries were under threat, it would be entirely appropriate, in my view, to pressure Egypt to do something about it.
I can't envisage a realistic situation where external forces would be appropriate in this case. I do believe that it is both right and proper to care about, and if necessary act for, our fragile collective cultural heritage. If that makes me a colonialist in your eyes then so be it. I've been called worse.
I was misusing the term nationalist in a literary device in order to deliberately mimic your misuse of the word colonialist. I wasn't so condescending as to assume you didn't know what colonialist meant so I assumed its misuse was deliberate too.
> my reply was thoughtful, not pointlessly insulting.
My mistake. It's rare to see colonialist used as a term of endearment.
> sovereign destiny / sovereign rights
I guess this is the meat of the point. See I don't believe that just because someone in temporarily in charge of a country that they should have carte blanche to do whatever they fancy. Now, in the case of the Coptic monasteries in the Sinai, there is no threat from the present government. If, say, the Sinai Insurgency escalated and the monasteries were under threat, it would be entirely appropriate, in my view, to pressure Egypt to do something about it.
I can't envisage a realistic situation where external forces would be appropriate in this case. I do believe that it is both right and proper to care about, and if necessary act for, our fragile collective cultural heritage. If that makes me a colonialist in your eyes then so be it. I've been called worse.
As I've said elsewhere in this thread, it's that you consider culture in general to be "collective," and that's a dangerous idea. I'm pretty okay with the idea of sharing my culture with you, but unless you're one of my people, you certainly don't have any claim on it.
What a scary notion.
I'm Egyptian Christian descent (genuinely, my father was from Alexandria).
Do I get a golden ticket? If I want to set fire to the library are we good with this as its "my people"? What about if I asked an external power in to preserve it?
But wait, I'm not Coptic. Are they not my people now? Am I a colonialist for wanting to preserve the library because of the church my old man attended?
What could possibly go wrong with cultural ghettoisation?
I'm Egyptian Christian descent (genuinely, my father was from Alexandria).
Do I get a golden ticket? If I want to set fire to the library are we good with this as its "my people"? What about if I asked an external power in to preserve it?
But wait, I'm not Coptic. Are they not my people now? Am I a colonialist for wanting to preserve the library because of the church my old man attended?
What could possibly go wrong with cultural ghettoisation?
> "...but unless you're one of my people..."
This is complicated. Are we to assume that we aren't in a culture group unless we are born from a group's member or born in a specific location. If a culture resonates with an individual that doesn't fit into the "culture group" definition, can they never see the culture as their own? It definitely seems to bring into question what the definition of culture is and when is a culture added to the collective. Isn't that what sharing does?
Aren't there arguments about writers writing books and readers interpreting the story in their own way? The story is now everybody's, right? I do feel the danger in the idea, but it also feels sort of correct.
This is complicated. Are we to assume that we aren't in a culture group unless we are born from a group's member or born in a specific location. If a culture resonates with an individual that doesn't fit into the "culture group" definition, can they never see the culture as their own? It definitely seems to bring into question what the definition of culture is and when is a culture added to the collective. Isn't that what sharing does?
Aren't there arguments about writers writing books and readers interpreting the story in their own way? The story is now everybody's, right? I do feel the danger in the idea, but it also feels sort of correct.
[deleted]
"People" don't have sovereign destiny. Only states are sovereign, and even then there are limits to sovereignty.
Whose conception of sovereign rights.
Sovereignty is the historic acquisition of power through violence in all cases that spring to mind (W. European bias).
How far back do you go. Does Russia now have sovereignty over Crimean history?
Sovereignty is the historic acquisition of power through violence in all cases that spring to mind (W. European bias).
How far back do you go. Does Russia now have sovereignty over Crimean history?
FYI, Crimea has been a part of Russia for over 200 years, except for the post Soviet Union period, which in and of itself was the result of a symbolic transfer of Crimea to the Ukranian SSR in 1954, marking the 300th year of the Ukraine under Russian rule. A move, which was supposed to have no strategic consequence, until the Soviet Union broke up and twenty years later NATO attempted to bring the Ukraine into their fold.
Of course Russia could not allow their warm water port to fall under NATO jurisdiction
Of course Russia could not allow their warm water port to fall under NATO jurisdiction
Please note that I've taken care to say "people" rather than "nations" or "government." People organize themselves into all sorts of forms with all sorts of power. I get that sovereignty is a particularly loaded term, but what I'm getting at is that culture is a product of a people, and a people is entitled to determine its own fate with the powers available to it.
This suggests many questions surrounding rights and ownership of culture.
If an object (informational work like a book, ancient artifact, etc.) is considered to be owned by the public, does a subset of the public have the right to destroy the object?
If an object has a cultural association, say of Egypt, is the public ownership of the object only those in Egyptian culture? Do Egyptian-Americans count under this ownership for example?
If the object is thousands of years old, is the ownership the heirs of the creator, if it is possible to track the descendants down? Is the ownership those who call nearby locations their home? Is the ownership all citizens of the country the object was created in, or currently resides in? Is the ownership simply the creator and nothing else? Or are ancient artifacts owned equally by all humans on earth?
These are not very straightforward questions. It is not a matter of their business and our business when it's difficult to place ownership of a cultural object.
If an object (informational work like a book, ancient artifact, etc.) is considered to be owned by the public, does a subset of the public have the right to destroy the object?
If an object has a cultural association, say of Egypt, is the public ownership of the object only those in Egyptian culture? Do Egyptian-Americans count under this ownership for example?
If the object is thousands of years old, is the ownership the heirs of the creator, if it is possible to track the descendants down? Is the ownership those who call nearby locations their home? Is the ownership all citizens of the country the object was created in, or currently resides in? Is the ownership simply the creator and nothing else? Or are ancient artifacts owned equally by all humans on earth?
These are not very straightforward questions. It is not a matter of their business and our business when it's difficult to place ownership of a cultural object.
I understand your point about invasion and imperialism, but I strongly disagree with your opinion that people from a country "own" the culture of this country.
National cultures and cultural artifacts are part of the human culture as a whole, and as such they belong to mankind.
There's hardly any good justification to destroy pieces of human culture, and misplaced nationalism definitely is not of them.
National cultures and cultural artifacts are part of the human culture as a whole, and as such they belong to mankind.
There's hardly any good justification to destroy pieces of human culture, and misplaced nationalism definitely is not of them.
The idea that all cultures belong to "mankind" is grease for the wheels of appropriation. People have a right to choose what they share with others.
There's a certain phrase that people from my county use to express surprise and approval. It isn't widely known. When I use it around neighbors, they know what I'm conveying, and it identifies us as kindred.
I could tell you what it is, and you might like it. You might even start using it just because you like the sound of it. And it might become very popular, and soon, all kinds of people from all kinds of places might bond over its use. Hell, people might even make T-shirts.
But I choose not to. It's a shibboleth for me and the folks back home, and that use is valuable to us. You don't have the right to force me to share it.
If I wanted to explore its etymology, survey exactly how widely it's used, or argue that it's related to a similar phrase in a nearby region, I could certainly do those things and might choose to. But if I don't, human culture as a whole doesn't get a crack at it just because I passed on the opportunity.
It's a bit of a contrived example, because I'm not talking about the Bhagavad Gita here, but I hope you see what I'm getting at. The transmission of culture between peoples should be based on a mutual interest in sharing and learning, not some sense of global entitlement.
There's a certain phrase that people from my county use to express surprise and approval. It isn't widely known. When I use it around neighbors, they know what I'm conveying, and it identifies us as kindred.
I could tell you what it is, and you might like it. You might even start using it just because you like the sound of it. And it might become very popular, and soon, all kinds of people from all kinds of places might bond over its use. Hell, people might even make T-shirts.
But I choose not to. It's a shibboleth for me and the folks back home, and that use is valuable to us. You don't have the right to force me to share it.
If I wanted to explore its etymology, survey exactly how widely it's used, or argue that it's related to a similar phrase in a nearby region, I could certainly do those things and might choose to. But if I don't, human culture as a whole doesn't get a crack at it just because I passed on the opportunity.
It's a bit of a contrived example, because I'm not talking about the Bhagavad Gita here, but I hope you see what I'm getting at. The transmission of culture between peoples should be based on a mutual interest in sharing and learning, not some sense of global entitlement.
I couldn't disagree more. You lose nothing if I too wear a tartan pattern, say. You're just being mean. FWIW it's a stage toddlers go through, not wanting other's to use what they use or do what they do.
Assuming you're USAmerican, USA has "appropriated" the scientific culture of Russia by also going to space; appropriated the beer making culture of Europe; appropriated the Television/Computer culture of Britain; the number system born from Indian/Persian culture; appropriated the high-fashion culture of Paris/Milan/etc. in some of it's cities; appropriated the food culture of Mexico/Germany/Italy/wherever; appropriated the traditional medicines that gave rise to drugs like aspirin; et cetera.
Why do you want to stop positive advancements from being adopted by everyone, is it just greed? Why do you care what culture the music someone else listens to was born from.
Of course you should be allowed to not adopt other's culture if that's your choice, only use anything you've created from scratch yourself (tool use I think arose out of E. African culture, better avoid that) - otherwise you're appropriating somebody's culture in some way.
Assuming you're USAmerican, USA has "appropriated" the scientific culture of Russia by also going to space; appropriated the beer making culture of Europe; appropriated the Television/Computer culture of Britain; the number system born from Indian/Persian culture; appropriated the high-fashion culture of Paris/Milan/etc. in some of it's cities; appropriated the food culture of Mexico/Germany/Italy/wherever; appropriated the traditional medicines that gave rise to drugs like aspirin; et cetera.
Why do you want to stop positive advancements from being adopted by everyone, is it just greed? Why do you care what culture the music someone else listens to was born from.
Of course you should be allowed to not adopt other's culture if that's your choice, only use anything you've created from scratch yourself (tool use I think arose out of E. African culture, better avoid that) - otherwise you're appropriating somebody's culture in some way.
Did you miss this bit?
"The transmission of culture between peoples should be based on a mutual interest in sharing and learning, not some sense of global entitlement."
"The transmission of culture between peoples should be based on a mutual interest in sharing and learning, not some sense of global entitlement."
No. Define "mutual interest"?
If something in your culture benefits me, why does my use of it have to be dependent on that also benefiting you? Indeed if its a loss for a small people group but a benefit globally then surely that's a positive thing.
Would you for example argue lack of distinctiveness as a negative thing, in which case you could be blocking all sharing by demanding "mutual interest".
If something in your culture benefits me, why does my use of it have to be dependent on that also benefiting you? Indeed if its a loss for a small people group but a benefit globally then surely that's a positive thing.
Would you for example argue lack of distinctiveness as a negative thing, in which case you could be blocking all sharing by demanding "mutual interest".
I don't want to be rude, pbhjpbhj, but I'm honestly not sure how to respond to that. I don't think I'm the right person to have that talk with you, and even if I am, this certainly doesn't seem like the right place or time.
Fair enough.
Though I'm interested if you can give specifics, like tell us what culture you identify with primarily and what aspects of that culture you want to keep for only people you identify as 'in' (belonging, if you will).
Maybe expand and show what you're foregoing from other cultures, like if you're not Chinese so avoid cultivated rice, or whatever.
Though I'm interested if you can give specifics, like tell us what culture you identify with primarily and what aspects of that culture you want to keep for only people you identify as 'in' (belonging, if you will).
Maybe expand and show what you're foregoing from other cultures, like if you're not Chinese so avoid cultivated rice, or whatever.
So you're saying that since your culture does not belong to mankind, that it belongs to you and your neighbors?Certainly you can't be forced to teach others this phrase, but neither can you stop someone else from using it. Other countries often appropriate English words and phrases, and yet it's not considered offensive.
Well, being a member of mankind, my culture does at some point stop being "my" culture alone. If my neighbors and I were to perish, I couldn't stop cultural anthropologists from trying to piece together our ways to better understand us. And I really wouldn't want to, honestly.
But I certainly don't want a bunch of carpetbaggers helping themselves to my culture in a way that would erode its meaning. So as a living member of the culture, I choose to share or not share based on what I value, why I value it, and how best I judge to nurture it. Would it be better for me, my people, and humanity if I shared this? Do I judge there is more value in not sharing while we are alive? Do I have a responsibility to preserve and transmit my culture--at least among my people?
Simple language is an example that breaks down fast, because I don't really lose anything by teaching you a phrase and its meaning. If my words live in one more mouth, there aren't fewer words for me to say. But even the meaning of words can change based on who uses them and how.
A better example might be a sacred text. I may have a "family Bible" handed down through centuries. The book itself might be a valuable cultural artifact, and the individual contributions by my ancestors might constitute a body of knowledge of interest to others. But it isn't anyone else's right to demand access to my "family Bible." There is no onus on my family to produce a digital copy, no moral obligation to permit visitors to leaf through its pages.
And you certainly may not hire men with guns to come into my home and take it just because I leave it on the coffee table instead of a safe. You may not kick in my door to preserve it just because the cat sleeps on it. But when I am dead and no kin remain to claim it? Take it, study it, put it in a museum.
But I certainly don't want a bunch of carpetbaggers helping themselves to my culture in a way that would erode its meaning. So as a living member of the culture, I choose to share or not share based on what I value, why I value it, and how best I judge to nurture it. Would it be better for me, my people, and humanity if I shared this? Do I judge there is more value in not sharing while we are alive? Do I have a responsibility to preserve and transmit my culture--at least among my people?
Simple language is an example that breaks down fast, because I don't really lose anything by teaching you a phrase and its meaning. If my words live in one more mouth, there aren't fewer words for me to say. But even the meaning of words can change based on who uses them and how.
A better example might be a sacred text. I may have a "family Bible" handed down through centuries. The book itself might be a valuable cultural artifact, and the individual contributions by my ancestors might constitute a body of knowledge of interest to others. But it isn't anyone else's right to demand access to my "family Bible." There is no onus on my family to produce a digital copy, no moral obligation to permit visitors to leaf through its pages.
And you certainly may not hire men with guns to come into my home and take it just because I leave it on the coffee table instead of a safe. You may not kick in my door to preserve it just because the cat sleeps on it. But when I am dead and no kin remain to claim it? Take it, study it, put it in a museum.
It can be grease for the wheels of appropriation, sure. And that kind of universalization can be a further cultural attack on minority peoples—saying that not even the language shared between mother and child is the legitimate domain of the people.
But archaeological remains aren't really necessarily an artifact of the culture that lives there now. Sometimes there is a continuous cultural tradition that claims them, and sometimes not. The Mississippian mounds of the midwestern US aren't an artifact of the U.S. of A., for example—they were in danger of being looted by Americans more than anything, in the 19th century certainly.
And much as an international militia for the defense of archaeological remains is a bad idea, I think the OP was talking more about ISIS blowing up the Temple of Baalshamin in Palmyra or the Taliban blowing up Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. The locals are likely descended from the people who built those structures, but we do all lose something. These religious structures were not shibboleths, but public structures into which people poured their creativity, their personality, their values, their traditions to communicate them within and beyond their community. I am not a Christian, but I am moved by the Sistine Chapel—this was Michaelangelo's goal. I am moved by the Hagia Sophia, by the Ishtar Gate.
If the Romans decide to blow up the Vatican, or the Canadians invade Missouri and carry off the artifacts of Cahokia, it's a loss to more than the residents of Rome and St. Louis. Even if (as with Palmyra &c.) it's locals who object most strongly and are the most injured.
But archaeological remains aren't really necessarily an artifact of the culture that lives there now. Sometimes there is a continuous cultural tradition that claims them, and sometimes not. The Mississippian mounds of the midwestern US aren't an artifact of the U.S. of A., for example—they were in danger of being looted by Americans more than anything, in the 19th century certainly.
And much as an international militia for the defense of archaeological remains is a bad idea, I think the OP was talking more about ISIS blowing up the Temple of Baalshamin in Palmyra or the Taliban blowing up Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. The locals are likely descended from the people who built those structures, but we do all lose something. These religious structures were not shibboleths, but public structures into which people poured their creativity, their personality, their values, their traditions to communicate them within and beyond their community. I am not a Christian, but I am moved by the Sistine Chapel—this was Michaelangelo's goal. I am moved by the Hagia Sophia, by the Ishtar Gate.
If the Romans decide to blow up the Vatican, or the Canadians invade Missouri and carry off the artifacts of Cahokia, it's a loss to more than the residents of Rome and St. Louis. Even if (as with Palmyra &c.) it's locals who object most strongly and are the most injured.
"We" as outsiders only lose the potential of having that culture shared with us. If your co-worker wrecks his car, you haven't lost the ability to drive it. You never had it. He might have chosen to let you drive it, or he might have chosen to let you ride in it, but you haven't lost anything just because the car might have been useful to you.
Sympathy is the appropriate response. Being ready to help people defend their culture in a conflict is fine, being ready to help people preserve culture before a conflict is fine, being available to help people recover what they can after a conflict is fine, but undermining people to preserve your expectation of value (like by hiring mercenaries to secure archives in a conflict zone) is not. That is an important difference.
Sympathy is the appropriate response. Being ready to help people defend their culture in a conflict is fine, being ready to help people preserve culture before a conflict is fine, being available to help people recover what they can after a conflict is fine, but undermining people to preserve your expectation of value (like by hiring mercenaries to secure archives in a conflict zone) is not. That is an important difference.
Culture is a consensus. It just so happens that the region of culture nearest to me values the practice of sifting through obscure, niche, or distant sub-cultures for stuff that may be temporarily adopted in isolation, yielding social status points for the discoverer and early adopters.
The destruction of cultural artifacts previously unknown by the local mainstream is thus deplored, not because it had any real intrinsic value, but because it is no longer available for someone to show off and say, "look at this cool old thing that I found, that none of you culturally ignorant heathens have ever seen before."
As N-thousand-years-old artifacts are a scarce resource, whenever some hairy barbarian burns a book that no one cares about, he deprives some hipster of a critical opportunity to gain prestige in front of their friends for about 20 minutes.
Now, some people may become upset that elements of what they perceive as their own culture are essentially being used as toys and amusements for someone else's culture, but it is an essential element of culture that it cannot be controlled in such a way that such uses could be prevented. Culture is broadcast. You put something out there, and it is either adopted and rebroadcast, or it fades into obscurity. Once it is part of the culture, it isn't fully yours any more.
There is no protection for culture. If the consensus changes the meaning of something you liked to something you don't, you just have to move on to liking something else. If someone manages to make rompers for grown men fashionable, you just suck it up and wait patiently for the fad to die. You don't have to wear one, unless you want to participate in that part of the culture. And you don't have to rescue one from a thrift shop as a cultural artifact after it goes away. If you did, it would just be some thing to stick in a museum, so future visitors could see it and giggle, say "hmmmm", or vow "never again".
Not all cultural artifacts are worthy of "saving". For all we know, those unique manuscripts that might be put to the torch when the invaders march in are someone else's cultural equivalent of a Hitler Pepe meme or a man-romper silkscreened with Kim Jong-Il's face at 500% actual size.
The destruction of cultural artifacts previously unknown by the local mainstream is thus deplored, not because it had any real intrinsic value, but because it is no longer available for someone to show off and say, "look at this cool old thing that I found, that none of you culturally ignorant heathens have ever seen before."
As N-thousand-years-old artifacts are a scarce resource, whenever some hairy barbarian burns a book that no one cares about, he deprives some hipster of a critical opportunity to gain prestige in front of their friends for about 20 minutes.
Now, some people may become upset that elements of what they perceive as their own culture are essentially being used as toys and amusements for someone else's culture, but it is an essential element of culture that it cannot be controlled in such a way that such uses could be prevented. Culture is broadcast. You put something out there, and it is either adopted and rebroadcast, or it fades into obscurity. Once it is part of the culture, it isn't fully yours any more.
There is no protection for culture. If the consensus changes the meaning of something you liked to something you don't, you just have to move on to liking something else. If someone manages to make rompers for grown men fashionable, you just suck it up and wait patiently for the fad to die. You don't have to wear one, unless you want to participate in that part of the culture. And you don't have to rescue one from a thrift shop as a cultural artifact after it goes away. If you did, it would just be some thing to stick in a museum, so future visitors could see it and giggle, say "hmmmm", or vow "never again".
Not all cultural artifacts are worthy of "saving". For all we know, those unique manuscripts that might be put to the torch when the invaders march in are someone else's cultural equivalent of a Hitler Pepe meme or a man-romper silkscreened with Kim Jong-Il's face at 500% actual size.
Just because you don't care about some old book doesn't mean that it has value to noone. One of the books found in the monastery was a thousand-year-old document written in Caucasian Albanian, for which there is no other documentation than short stone inscriptions. The Udi people speak a descendent of this language, but their language community is under severe threat. Something like this would probably be very important to a community trying to save its cultural traditions! Not to mention the historians and humanists who can often glean some amazing insights from the scanty evidence left to us by history. The last printed-out Hitler Pepe meme might be very revealing to a far-future historian trying to understand our times.
Cultural traditions are exactly those things that generation after generation of a community has seen the value of preserving.
Cultural traditions are exactly those things that generation after generation of a community has seen the value of preserving.
The point is that I can't decide what other people should value culturally. And I certainly shouldn't send in mercenaries to "secure cultural artifacts".
It would be acceptable to offer to buy the ones you intend to preserve, or to donate to a museum to preserve the ones they see as important. Archaeology at gunpoint isn't good for the artifacts, isn't good for the people who had them, and isn't good for the people that take them. The best you could do in that vein would be to create a new cultural artifact featuring an adventurer-archaeologist that pilfers the important artifact you would like to preserve as the main plot MacGuffin. And to not make it about stupid crystal-skulled aliens.
It would be acceptable to offer to buy the ones you intend to preserve, or to donate to a museum to preserve the ones they see as important. Archaeology at gunpoint isn't good for the artifacts, isn't good for the people who had them, and isn't good for the people that take them. The best you could do in that vein would be to create a new cultural artifact featuring an adventurer-archaeologist that pilfers the important artifact you would like to preserve as the main plot MacGuffin. And to not make it about stupid crystal-skulled aliens.
"Shibboleth"? Cultural appropriation!
I think that is the first time I have seen shibboleth used in a neutral way.
Everywhere else I have seen it used there has always been an implication that the making of distinctions like this was negative.
I'm not making a value judgement here, it just struck me as unusual.
Everywhere else I have seen it used there has always been an implication that the making of distinctions like this was negative.
I'm not making a value judgement here, it just struck me as unusual.
[deleted]
in the first Gulf War, the UN Coalition forces (mostly the US) carpet bombed parts of Iraq that contained a lot of yet-to-be-excavated ancient villages (they looked like mounds in the sand by the 1990s).
we lost of a bunch of priceless history then, too.
i'm not trying to make statements about the equivalences or non-equivalences of various war participants over there, but, there's so much ancient history being destroyed by military operations nowadays.
who the hell knows what's being lost in Yemen right now?
and there are also ethical questions. i mean, suppose we could pay Blackwater to lead a team of archaeologists to make digital copies of some stuff -- but they had to kill a few dozen people in the process? would anyone still feel good about donating to that campaign? would it have been worthwhile?
we lost of a bunch of priceless history then, too.
i'm not trying to make statements about the equivalences or non-equivalences of various war participants over there, but, there's so much ancient history being destroyed by military operations nowadays.
who the hell knows what's being lost in Yemen right now?
and there are also ethical questions. i mean, suppose we could pay Blackwater to lead a team of archaeologists to make digital copies of some stuff -- but they had to kill a few dozen people in the process? would anyone still feel good about donating to that campaign? would it have been worthwhile?
If you find this kind of thing interesting, you might want to check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices
It's profoundly depressing to consider what was lost, though.
It's profoundly depressing to consider what was lost, though.
Yes, you could say we'd learn something is the last 500 years.
Mildly related, in the same times, a minority protection office was established and funded to some extent [1] which also incurred in some well known political upheaval.
There's nothing new under the sun.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protector_of_the_Indians
Mildly related, in the same times, a minority protection office was established and funded to some extent [1] which also incurred in some well known political upheaval.
There's nothing new under the sun.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protector_of_the_Indians
[deleted]
Remnants of Pagan civilisations is being destroyed by this.
There could be some agenda over this.
"During his reign of the eastern part of the Empire (40–30 BC), Mark Antony plundered the second largest library in the world (at Pergamon) and presented the collection as a gift to Cleopatra as a replacement for the books lost to Caesar's fire."
Oh, Romans
Oh, Romans
To be fair, he was one of the more colorful characters in the history of the empire. That entire generation is fascinating.
Or we could fund adventurer archeologists like Indiana Jones to protect the artifacts by stealing them. Either way, we've probably stepped off into the realm of unworkable fiction.
Indiana Jones aside, people actually used to do that. Check out the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. German archeologists excavated and disassembled large artifacts. They kind of "stole" the artifacts, although it wasn't technically illegal at the time.
http://www.egyptian-museum-berlin.com/c01.php
http://www.egyptian-museum-berlin.com/c01.php
A while ago I had brief (because I was traveling) access to a stack of old family documents. Scanning them would have taken too long, so I just snapped a photo of each page with my phone. It took a few seconds for each page, and I got through the whole stack.
The results were very good, the pages were clear and sharp, even though I hadn't been able to flatten them out.
The results were very good, the pages were clear and sharp, even though I hadn't been able to flatten them out.
The Google Drive app on Android (not sure about other platforms) has a "Scan" functionality that digitally flattens out the picture of a document and saves as a pdf. It's very handy and quality is very good.
The Dropbox app on iOS does the same thing.
Thanks for the tip!
various other apps, ie TinyScanner are doing the same (for those who don't use these google services for whatever reasons, like me)
It's actually an interesting debate. Do we care more about a book or a statue than a human life? Shouldn't these resources be protecting the populations first before worrying about books?
How much of your personal wealth have you spent saving these people? 50%? 80%? How do you have time to post on HN when you should be tirelessly working as an activist?
We need to stop shaming people for trying to do good because there is something else we believe is a better cause.
Well, except people who think they are "helping" by forming "prayer circles" to help with disasters or take crates and crates of bibles to starving people. Shame the hell out of them.
We need to stop shaming people for trying to do good because there is something else we believe is a better cause.
Well, except people who think they are "helping" by forming "prayer circles" to help with disasters or take crates and crates of bibles to starving people. Shame the hell out of them.
Well, the west (you know, those "evil, colonialist, world police"?) already does a lot to protect people from terrorism already, but protecting people from terrorism is quite a lot more costly and morally complicated (well, some people manage to conflate "combatting terrorism" with "racially motivated colonialism" anyway) than protecting artifacts. Protecting artifacts is intractable for reasons of international law and national sovereignty.
From a totally cold, unfeeling standpoint: people are self replicating, ancient artifacts are not.
The fruit of the Other's work--their research, their art, their innovations--is necessarily worth more than the Other's lives to the colonialist.
It's obvious that lives (and memory) are worth more to anyone with compassion who can recognize other people's humanity. That is only a debate and only interesting if you engage in it to remind someone with a colonialist mindset of their own shared humanity.
It's obvious that lives (and memory) are worth more to anyone with compassion who can recognize other people's humanity. That is only a debate and only interesting if you engage in it to remind someone with a colonialist mindset of their own shared humanity.
To be clear, if the OP proposed intervention to save lives, you would no less call him a colonialist.
Please don't put words in my mouth.
That's a rich request in light of your previous comment.
There was an Indiegogo campaign a while back to do this for books in Timbuktu. (I chipped in.) Well, not a militia technically.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... 2017 as a comment.
First tier is a group of local farmers with rusty AK's, but the stretch goal is a team of operators from Academi. If you chip in more than $50 you get your name removed from the list of backers on the off chance that this turns into some sort of international incident when the militia joins ISIS or the Academi team massacre a nearby village.
First tier is a group of local farmers with rusty AK's, but the stretch goal is a team of operators from Academi. If you chip in more than $50 you get your name removed from the list of backers on the off chance that this turns into some sort of international incident when the militia joins ISIS or the Academi team massacre a nearby village.
This is very interesting. I've thought several times fantasized about setting up a Kickstarter to fund hiring blackwater for things like this. I wonder though if this isn't what we originally created government for. Does the fact that people are thinking about this "hack" say more about where technology has gotten or about the state of politics?
Probably the state of politics. I suspect crowdfunding would never raise enough for the likes of Blackwater.
Fun fact, St. Catherine's monastery was promised protection by Mohammed (the founder of Islam). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtiname_of_Muhammad
Even the fundamentalists wouldn't go against the prophet himself...
Even the fundamentalists wouldn't go against the prophet himself...
ISIS would kill all these monks and burn the place down if given half a chance but then they would literally be going against the word of Muhammad if they did.
Theoretically this should be the job of UNESCO. But I'd rather deal with the conflict zones directly.
Something like say... United Nations and UNESCO?
You'd think it would be cheaper and more productive to just buy the books and put them in the British Library or something.
Priceless to whom ? How many hindsights are we really going to gain from that ? How many people are even going to benefit from it. No, how many will even hear about it or will effectively access this ?
We have tendency to consider that all knowledge is precious. That all information, especially from the past, should be treasured. It's sounds more anchored in a collector mindset that in any real assessment of the value of the discovery.
We can't save everything. We don't have to save everything.
As usual, we need to evaluate the cost vs the reward.
Now the hard part is to put a value on knowledge and potential, which I agree is very hard and controversial. But stating we must save things as soon as we discover it doesn't help.
We have tendency to consider that all knowledge is precious. That all information, especially from the past, should be treasured. It's sounds more anchored in a collector mindset that in any real assessment of the value of the discovery.
We can't save everything. We don't have to save everything.
As usual, we need to evaluate the cost vs the reward.
Now the hard part is to put a value on knowledge and potential, which I agree is very hard and controversial. But stating we must save things as soon as we discover it doesn't help.
You might only discover that something had value in hindsight. Discriminating between what's a priceless heirloom and trivial garbage can be very difficult.
Storage is cheap nowadays, if we can afford to archive petabytes of cat videos I'm sure we can collect endangered cultural artifacts.
Who knows what we could've learned from the destroyed works of the library of Alexandria? All those things we don't know we don't know...
Storage is cheap nowadays, if we can afford to archive petabytes of cat videos I'm sure we can collect endangered cultural artifacts.
Who knows what we could've learned from the destroyed works of the library of Alexandria? All those things we don't know we don't know...
> You might only discover that something had value in hindsight.
I completely agree.
But we have data about many, many languages, lost and current. The chances that those newly discovered ones bring something more than "oh that's nice and interesting" on the table are quite weak.
> Who knows what we could've learned from the destroyed works of the library of Alexandria?
This is a totally different scale. As I say, we must assess the potential winning vs the cost.
Currently, the science enthusiasts are saying yes to everything, and the people with money are saying no to everything. I find it harmful both ways.
I completely agree.
But we have data about many, many languages, lost and current. The chances that those newly discovered ones bring something more than "oh that's nice and interesting" on the table are quite weak.
> Who knows what we could've learned from the destroyed works of the library of Alexandria?
This is a totally different scale. As I say, we must assess the potential winning vs the cost.
Currently, the science enthusiasts are saying yes to everything, and the people with money are saying no to everything. I find it harmful both ways.
"But we have data about many, many languages, lost and current. The chances that those newly discovered ones bring something more than "oh that's nice and interesting" on the table are quite weak."
I can imagine someone saying this in the early 20th century. And then the decipherment of Hittite and discovery of Tocharian completely rewrote the history of the Near East and Central Asia. Just a few years ago, Werner and Vajda’s work on Ket finally connected a Siberian population with a Native American one. In fact, I could really go on for hours about how much Central and Northeast Asia history has been drastically revised in just the last 20–30 years from this kind of work.
Digitizing manuscripts and analyzing data collected from little-known languages is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways (especially compared to digs) to gain major historical insights.
I can imagine someone saying this in the early 20th century. And then the decipherment of Hittite and discovery of Tocharian completely rewrote the history of the Near East and Central Asia. Just a few years ago, Werner and Vajda’s work on Ket finally connected a Siberian population with a Native American one. In fact, I could really go on for hours about how much Central and Northeast Asia history has been drastically revised in just the last 20–30 years from this kind of work.
Digitizing manuscripts and analyzing data collected from little-known languages is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways (especially compared to digs) to gain major historical insights.
I don't mean it's not valuable. I mean that which should always balance the cost instead of jumping on it.
This is in fact an article about discoveries in palimpsets, where an older manuscript was erased and used to write a new manuscript over it. Lots of similar discoveries in papyri re-used to wrap mummies, as well. It's the ancient equivalent of re-using old newsprint as trivial garbage, but a valuable discovery today.
Your argument about cheap storage misses the point. The difficult part is finding/protecting/retrieving/sorting the data.
Is it only me who thought this was going to be about a programming language!
I visited St.Catherine's before, you can get there pretty easy from Sharm el-Sheikh in the Sinai on your way to climb mount Sinai. you can go there for sunrise, it involves an early rise and a bit of a hike but it's beautiful at sunrise. St. Catherine's is also host to what is considered the burning bush. buhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_bush#Location
I visited St.Catherine's before, you can get there pretty easy from Sharm el-Sheikh in the Sinai on your way to climb mount Sinai. you can go there for sunrise, it involves an early rise and a bit of a hike but it's beautiful at sunrise. St. Catherine's is also host to what is considered the burning bush. buhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_bush#Location
Before I clicked the link, I thought it would be about the dead WEB language invented by Donald Knuth to author TeX, which is one of the longest running software libraries in the open source world. :-)
Someday in a Vernor Vinge-ish future, software archeologists could discover a dead programming language that is being used at the core of their ancient starship's libraries.
lol we're clearly on the same wavelength I just finished Reading Rainbow's End. Funny after reading it was one of those books I enjoyed thinking about after reading it. The reading of it wasn't that enjoyable. I didn't like the style.
I'm curious what we would even use to run a true starship that needs to be 100% reliable for decades. Maybe Rust will be a good candidate some day? I think it needs to have that speed & safety, but be much higher level.
I doubt the language picked will have significant impact; reliability will mostly depend on the extensiveness/correctness of simulations. And presumably with sufficient coverage (and at the scale, we require it) memory bugs will be the least of our safety worries
I'm guessing full AI that can maintain itself. Vernor Vinge assumes the singularity hasn't and will never happen, but most fanciful and pragmatic visions of the far future don't make that assumption.
There is a longer, more detailed article on this work at https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/sinai-pe....
The articles are similar enough they must originate from the same press release, but the Atlantic's take adds more.
The articles are similar enough they must originate from the same press release, but the Atlantic's take adds more.
uncovering lost texts: michael phelps' secret to gold medals
It would be interesting to compare modern Udi with the discovered Caucasian Albanian text to see if there is any resemblance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udi_language