Roman Nanotechnology

[nicolas.fox]

This great post on the Archaeologica news section really made me wake up amazed this morning.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-a ... 63661.html

That's crazy... If only we didn't lose over a 1000 years of knowledge because of the fall of the Roman Empire and Christianity.

More on the cup: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycurgus_Cup

[Minimalist]

When we were at Pompeii our guide pointed out a particular red color on the frescoes in some of the houses and noted that modern artists have never been able to replicate that particular shade.

[kbs2244]

How much was lost at Alexandria?

[nicolas.fox]

When we were at Pompeii our guide pointed out a particular red color on the frescoes in some of the houses and noted that modern artists have never been able to replicate that particular shade.

I bought one of them expensive big books that explains everything about Pompeii (spent an entire day there, and still couldn't finish the entire site). It mentions the color you're refering to. They tried to replicate it many times, but never got it right. They're guessing it's some mineral or plant that went extinct. But as far as I gather from the book, that's more than speculation.

How much was lost at Alexandria?

I try not to talk about that, it saddens me to think about it. Nobody really knows how large the collection was, there's some books written on the subject. But in the end, it's everyone's guess. I suppose Wikipedia's got it right:

It is now impossible to determine the collection's size in any era with any certainty. Papyrus scrolls constituted the collection, and although codices were used after 300 BC, the Alexandrian Library is never documented as having switched to parchment, perhaps because of its strong links to the papyrus trade. (The Library of Alexandria in fact had an indirect cause in the creation of writing parchment — due to the library's critical need for papyrus, little was exported and thus an alternate source of copy material became essential.)[17]

A single piece of writing might occupy several scrolls, and this division into self-contained "books" was a major aspect of editorial work. King Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309–246 BC) is said to have set 500,000 scrolls as an objective for the library.[18] Mark Antony supposedly gave Cleopatra over 200,000 scrolls (taken from the great Library of Pergamum) for the library as a wedding gift, but this is regarded by some historians as a propagandist claim meant to show Antony's allegiance to Egypt rather than Rome.[19] No index of the library survives,[citation needed] and it is not possible to know with certainty how large and how diverse the collection may have been. For example, it is likely that even if the Library of Alexandria had hundreds of thousands of scrolls (and thus perhaps tens of thousands of individual works), some of these would have been duplicate copies or alternate versions of the same texts.

But I'm guessing your comment was retorical

[circumspice]

Loss of knowledge diminishes us all.

[MichelleH]

Loss of knowledge diminishes us all.

There has been a lot of that since ancient times.......

[Minimalist]

Of course, who knows how much damage have been done by light and humidity?

[Minimalist]

Caesar may have accidentally started a fire and Aurelian may have started a fire while trying to conquer the city, but Theodosius and the Muslims deliberately burned the library alone.

It's always religion.

[nicolas.fox]

Great detailed picture Min, I enjoyed that. I think I'll spend some time with my own Pompeii pictures later (need a better camera though, but I hate the heavy big ones).

As far as the Library is concerned. I'm pretty sure the Muslim Conquest didn't have a lot to destroy anymore. In addition to this, they were not prone to destruction of classical text. They even were very industrious at copying them (long before Christians in Europe got the bright idea that these old texts were actually far ahead of their own thinking).

The Christians did indeed destroy the Sarapeum (and perhaps the adjacent library, and the one stored inside the temple) because they were very good at destroying beautiful Greek/Roman temples (this is all very well documented). But I doubt they would have taken the time to destroy the texts (a couple of centuries later they would busy themselves with this attrocity). They probably destroyed some by accident though.

My guess is that both Caesar and Aurelian did start fires by accident, but did their utmost to restore the facility to its former glory (at least we know Caesar and his successors did). It never reached the same level as before, especially because all of the oldest text were consumed in the first fire, so the fame of the Library must have dwindeled at least a little bit. But all in all: it survived.

The great decline of the Library, however, I think is linked to the evolution (or de-evolution as you will) of literacy in the Roman Empire. The rise and growing popularity of Christianity goes hand in hand with a decline of both the amount of new works created and literacy among the general public. A decline in interest, combined with the physical destruction afterward by Christians, and (possibly) even further by Muslims, turned this once famous institution into a skeleton of brick and mortar. And, as is always the case, the remains (spolia) got reused into later buildings.

So yes, in the end: it always is religion.

[Minimalist]

You can get some amazing discussion going about literacy in the ancient world. We have one former member here - it takes a lot to get banned but he managed it - who insists that literacy rates in the ancient world were similar to our own!

The definitive study on ancient literacy is William Harris' Ancient Literacy and he generally comes down between the 5-10% range. But even here, there are degrees of literacy. The Roman army taught rudimentary literacy to recruits so they could read the duty roster and know when it was their turn to clean the latrines. It is unlikely that they could have used that to then pick up a dialogue of Plato.

[Cognito]

As far as the Library is concerned. I'm pretty sure the Muslim Conquest didn't have a lot to destroy anymore. In addition to this, they were not prone to destruction of classical text. They even were very industrious at copying them (long before Christians in Europe got the bright idea that these old texts were actually far ahead of their own thinking).

I have heard that some of the Alexandrian texts found their way into the Bagdhad Library that was established some years after the library was trashed by the Muslims. However, texts in the Bagdhad Library were dumped into the Euphrates by the Mongols in 1258 when they demolished the city. According to one source, the Euphrates turned blue for two years from the ink.

[nicolas.fox]

The definitive study on ancient literacy is William Harris' Ancient Literacy and he generally comes down between the 5-10% range.

Ha! That takes me back (not too long though). We had to read this book during my Master History studies. None of the professors agreed with what Harris had to say about the subject and used it as a great example of bad research, and to get a discussion going. The basic conclusion was that there is no way to have even the slightest idea of how literate people were back then, because there are only a few sources that make mention of the literary level of the general public. Sure, it was in no way as highly developped as the Western world today. But it is believed it is similar to some lesser developed countries today. Especially, according to what I was taught, the level of literary output in Ancient Greece up until the 4th Century AD was too high to have a range of 5-10%.

I sure do hope this doesn't get me banned though!

I have heard that some of the Alexandrian texts found their way into the Bagdhad Library that was established some years after the library was trashed by the Muslims. However, texts in the Bagdhad Library were dumped into the Euphrates by the Mongols in 1258 when they demolished the city. According to one source, the Euphrates turned blue for two years from the ink.

I wonder how many stories about the Library there are. And if there is one that is not sad.

[Minimalist]

Agrarian societies did not place a great value on literacy - a position which endured even in Europe until the invention of the printing press.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/literacy-rates

But hardly 10 percent of the Italian population could read Dante’s Divine Comedy at the time of its printing in 1321.

In the 14th century, 80 percent of English adults couldn’t even spell their names. When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440, only about 30 percent of European adults were literate. Gutenberg’s invention flooded Europe with printed material and literacy rates began to rise. In the 17th century education became an emphasized part of urban societies, further catalyzing the spread of literacy. All told, literacy rates in England grew from 30 percent of about 4 million people in 1641 to 47 percent of roughly 4.7 million in 1696. As wars, depressions and disease riddled 18th century Europe, the pace of literacy growth slowed but continued upwards, reaching 62 percent among the English population of roughly 8 million by 1800.

Again, Gutenberg provided something to read. Hand-copied books were dreadfully expensive. Also we have to consider the degree of literacy. Someone who could scrawl his name with a piece of charcoal was not necessarily able to read Milton or Chaucer.

[uniface]

True enough. But anybody who could sound the words out, one syllable at a time, could manage that.

[nicolas.fox]

Not really sure if you should compare literacy rates from Dante's and Gutenberg's time to Roman or Greek times. My bet is that the rates were higher before the rise of Christianity, so I agree with your sources but I don't see how they're related to centuries before.