Posted on 12/20/2013 9:11:01 AM PST by Renfield
For centuries scholars have been hunting for the lost works of ancient Greek and Latin literature. In the Renaissance, books were found in monastic libraries. In the late 19th Century papyrus scrolls were found in the sands of Egypt. But only in Herculaneum in southern Italy has an entire library from the ancient Mediterranean been discovered in situ.
On the eve of the catastrophe in 79 AD, Herculaneum was a chic resort town on the Bay of Naples, where many of Rome's top families went to rest and recuperate during the hot Italian summers.
It was also a place where Rome's richest engaged in a bit of cultural one-upmanship - none more so than Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, a politician and father-in-law of Julius Caesar.
In Herculaneum, Piso built a seaside villa on a palatial scale - the width of its beach frontage alone exceeds 220m (721ft). When it was excavated in the middle of the 18th Century, it was found to hold more than 80 bronze and marble statues of the highest quality, including one of Pan having sex with a goat....
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Ping
And you conclude your excerpt with “Pan having sex with a goat...”
Hmmmmm,,,,,...
I hope they find a comedy by Aristotle...
Isn’t that the place where the lead smelter was that the EPA shut down 2000 years ago?
“And you conclude your excerpt with “Pan having sex with a goat...”
Hmmmmm,,,,,...”
Coming soon to a public school, museum, or Senate Bldg near you.
Talk to the BBC. BBC must be excerpted and I had to cut it off somewhere.
“BBC must be excerpted and I had to cut it off somewhere.”
Butt you cut it off there! 8^)
Sounds incestuous to me.
Pan was a Muslim? Who knew?
British Science is in error yet again. The Italian archaeologists actually know how to do this and have done this quite well long before the English got out of their huts...and therefore need NO help from "British science."
Pan having sex with a goat...
Was that the 1st muslim?
Sounds like a Clinton-era Christmas tree ornament.
20-20 hindsight, but the appalling way this unique archive has been vandalized, and partly destroyed, has always sickened me.
What a wonderful thing to live in a time when it is possible for science to help us read these scrolls.
I have been fascinated with these since I was a little kid.
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