In search of Western civilisation's lost classics

The Australian ^ | 8/6/08 | Luke Slattery

[LibWhacker]

The unique library of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, buried beneath lava by Vesuvius's eruption in AD79, is slowly revealing its long-held secrets

STORED in a sky-lit reading room on the top floor of the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples are the charred remains of the only library to survive from classical antiquity. The ancient world's other great book collections -- at Athens, Alexandria and Rome -- all perished in the chaos of the centuries. But the library of the Villa of the Papyri was conserved, paradoxically, by an act of destruction.

Lying to the northwest of ancient Herculaneum, this sumptuous seaside mansion was buried beneath 30m of petrified volcanic mud during the catastrophic eruption of Mt Vesuvius on August 24, AD79.

[Luke21]

They are editing and throwing out a lot more recent classics like Huck Finn. All because of political correctness religion.

[hershey]

Wonderful post and well worth the read. Fine writing, too. Thanks!

[x]

What happens when they find all those lost Greek tragedies? Will we find the authors were more repetitive then they seemed to our ancestors? Will we think better of the dramatists for their inventiveness in coming up with so many plots, or will we think less of the existing works, seeing them as just more of the same?

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

To answer your questions, yes.

Because modern literary criticism (including that of the Classics) is more about the critic than the author.

So there will be a critic to represent every one of your possible reactions.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

Victor Davis Hanson excluded, of course, and a few others.

[ModelBreaker]

Epicurus, the creed's founder, was a fourth century BC atomist philosopher with an atheistic bent and a medicinal aim. He wanted to remedy human pain in this life rather than prepare sufferers for the next. "Nothing to fear in God," he wrote, displaying a talent for pithy distillation. "Nothing to feel in death. Good can be attained. Evil can be endured."

. . .

"Epicurus's philosophy exercised so widespread an influence that for a long time it was touch and go whether Christianity might not have to give way before it," writes Lawrence Durrell in a tone of lament.

Being told to do whatever you want and that there is no God to to fear is as attractive to people today as it was in Rome. It's the same ancient battle.

[LibWhacker]

"There are almost certainly more books to be found there." ... He points out that many of the scrolls were discovered in carrying containers arrayed in a line, as if being evacuated towards the sea.

I bet they tried to evacuate the most important scrolls in their collection first. All of those were most likely lost when the first pyroclastic flow hit them, or if they managed to get them out, disappeared over the centuries. Would have been better if they had just left them in place. Of course, they couldn't have known that. I wouldn't be surprised that, if and when the site ever is completely excavated, we won't be disappointed with what wasn't found there.

[wildbill]

There are two mysteries of the ancients that I want to see resolved before I die:

1. Open the tomb of Qin She Huang, the first emperor of China whose terracotta army still stands guard outside his tomb.

2. Open, conserve and decipher the Herculaneum library that may contain all those unknown books from the ancient world.

[stripes1776]

This is a fascinating article. I do hope they can continue to excavate this ancient site. And yes, it is quite a paradox that so violent a destructive explosion has preserved so many antique works of art.

[Oatka]

When I ask to view a papyrus fragment from the vaults, a librarian pauses to absorb the request . . . She returns carrying a gun-metal tray on which a sheet of papyrus, older than many a classical fluted column and as brittle as a desiccated insect wing, . . .

Reminds me of the mind-blowing work they did with the Dead Sea Scrolls. There was a pile of fragments, most the size of confetti, that were also recovered. Since the Scrolls were made out of sheepskin, they did DNA tests on every scrap and seperated out the "pages". Then they began to piece them together - and succeeded. History owes a lot to folks like that.

[Daffynition]

Thanks for posting this great thread.

A carbonized scroll from Herculaneum

Getting words out of those sticks of charcoal seemed an impossible task until scientists at Brigham Young University (BYU), in Utah, devised a revolutionary new multi-spectral imaging technology.

The technology, originally developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab to study planet surfaces, can distinguish microscopic variations in the chemical composition of substances — such as ink on the burned scroll parchment — and turn them into clear images.

"Where conventional photography has failed, multi-spectral imaging, with its uniquely designed filter system and a modified digital camera, has provided readable images of these carbonized scrolls. Basically, we are able to take out the blackness of the papyri and enhance the ink because they have different reflective characteristics," Steven Booras, imaging project manager of the BYU Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, said.

Instead of taking two or three weeks to read a few letters on small, frail scrolls, the new technology, described in the recent documentary Out of the Ashes: Recovering the Lost Library of Herculaneum, allows scholars to read the papyri very easily. Text is visible where no ink was previously detected.

"We are finding new readings on almost any papyri we are looking at. As long as the page itself is not broken, we can expect to find some dramatic improvement," Roger Macfarlane, director of the BYU Herculaneum Papyri Project, said.

Among the works scholars hope to read using the new technology are Aristotle's lost 30 dialogues, philosophical work by Epicurus, erotic poems by Philodemus, Virgilius' lost eclogue, scientific work by Archimedes and lesbian poetry by Sappho.

After imaging more than 10,000 scroll fragments, the BYU team is now working to create a permanent digital library of the papyri and make it available on the Internet.

"Scholars around the world will be able to sit in front of their computers and study these papyri," Macfarlane said.

A carbonized scroll fragment is read under a microscope at the National Library in Naples, Italy.

Picture: Mark Philbrick/Brigham Young University/courtesy Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples, Italy |

"Modern-day Ercolano sits on top of it. Several buildings, including the town hall, would have to be pulled down to make way for the digging," Pietro Giovanni Guzzo, Pompeii's archaeological superintendent, said.

Villa of the Papyri under excavation

[SunkenCiv]

Scientists use MRI at Kadlec to look at ancient Roman scrolls
Tri-City Herald | Thursday, Jul. 10, 2008 | Sara Schilling
Posted on 07/11/2008 9:39:52 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2044301/posts

[SunkenCiv]

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[gleeaikin]

Epicurus did not tell people to do whatever they want. Rather his philosphy sounds rather like Bhuddism, with it’s emphasis on rampant desire as a source of unhappiness. It sounds as if he favored simple, low consumption living. The article points out that the use that was made of his name, epicurian, is the antithesis of his viewpoint.

[ModelBreaker]

Epicurus did not tell people to do whatever they want. Rather his philosphy sounds rather like Bhuddism, with it’s emphasis on rampant desire as a source of unhappiness.

All true. But when you eliminate any reason to reign in rampant desire, other than personal preference, most people (other than philosophers and their students) take that as license to do whatever they want. You see the symptoms of that in Rome (although Epicurianism may have been a symptom of existing sickness in Rome rather than a cause) and you see the same thing in America and Western Europe (largely, imho, as a result of secular humanism).

The parallel is actually quite remarkable. Philosophical secular humanists today all have systems that they think provide a non-religious reason to behave properly. That may work for them and their disciples; but in society at large, the message is "do whatever you want" because there is no reason not to. But perhaps they too (like Epicurians) are just a symptom (not a cause) of the degeneration of our culture caused by wealth, idle time, and endless nattering about feelings and other unimportant things by folks like Oprah.

[curmudgeonII]

It won’t make much difference. Present day kids aren’t reading the classics that have been preserved.

[zeugma]

BFL

[Joe 6-pack]

"...Western civilisation's lost classics..."

Many of them are now available as audiobooks ;-)

[mysterio]

Wow, thank you for the photos.