Did Asteroids And Comets Turn The Tides Of Civilization?

Discovering Archaeology ^ | July/August 1999 | Mike Baillie

[The_Reader_David]

Anna is not proof of the high literacy rate (read Vassiliev's history if you want more on that) but the fact that classical educations persisted into the 11th century. There was no "Dark Age" in the Empire--classical antiquity survived in Christianized form until the Muslims destroyed the Empire. The Dark Age in the East begins in the 1300's when the Empire is reduced to a city-state and the barbarous Turks are in control: literacy drops so that the stereotypes of 'illiterate Greeks' become a reality just as illiterate Franks were a reality in the West during the "Dark Ages."

[The_Reader_David]

I haven't a clue who JasonC is, save that he shows up on the ping list with me.

As for arrogance, I think the whole scholarly tradition in Western Europe and America which follows Gibbon in disparaging the Christian Empire, a civilization which spanned over 1000 years and was the dominant power in Europe and the Levant through much of it, is the height of arrogance in its cultural self-centeredness.

Great original thoughts which do not accord with fact are called fantasies and are the province of adolecents, not adults.

[PaulKersey]

>Great original thoughts which do not accord with fact are called fantasies

Tell that to H. Schlieman before he discovered Troy, and a bookfull of others who went beyond "accepted facts". Only pedantic dullards are trapped in the fantasy that accepted "facts" are the only "facts", or are, in fact, facts at all.

[The_Reader_David]

The problem with the idea is not going beyond "accepted facts" but proceeding on the basis of false "facts". The Dark Ages were a local phenomenon. It is particularly ironic that the post mentions Justinian: during the so called Dark Ages, Justinian gave the definitive codification of Roman Law, classical learning still alive, and science was no more stagnant than during the pagan Imperial period. Indeed it was during this period that the liquid fire which burned on contact with water, so called "Greek fire" was discovered.

The arts were not stagnant: Imperial secular art still exhibitted full knowledge of perspective, used in the conventional way, while Orthodox iconography, far from forgetting the laws of perspective, deliberately turned them upside down, so that the viewer became the vanishing point, and what was beyond the icon became visually as well as symbolically the view into a larger 'spiritual space'.

[JasonC]

Gee, some others seem to expect reasons why. Which is why I gave sch reasons I was asked for comments, you know. It is not like they were unsolicited. If you only want comments that think your latest idea is the greatest thing since sliced bread, why not just say so in the ping?

[JasonC]

Why would I "try again", when nobody has addressed a single one of my previous points on the substance? You think it is more arrogant of me to give reasons, than to dismiss mine with a wave of your stylistic tone wand without any? At any rate, it settles nothing in rational argument, whereas reasons given for a view, and not addressed by the other side in a debate, have a certain heft to them.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I have been busy so have missed some of your pings!

To find all articles tagged or indexed using 'Gods, Graves, Glyphs'

Click here: 'Gods, Graves, Glyphs'

[blam]

Thanks. I thought you had gotten mad at me. (...or something?)

[Seti 1]

Wonderful post. Please learn how to do a ping list (if there is such a thing) and add me to it. I have opened a new category in my Favorites file.

[blam]

"Please learn how to do a ping list (if there is such a thing) and add me to it. "

I'll try to remember you. (smile)

[Domestic Church]

About that celestial spanking..."This planet is bombarded
relatively often. If this story is correct, we have been bombarded at least three times - and probably five times -
since the birth of civilization some 5,000 years ago. And each time, the world was changed."

[Desdemona]

If this story is correct, we have been bombarded at least three times - and probably five times - since the birth of civilization some 5,000 years ago. And each time, the world was changed."

Think it'll hit the UN building? Maybe the Hague?

[Godebert]

"I say in a billion years descendants of the cockroaches will be running this place."

Not likely. They've remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. I'd put your money on the small rodents, they have a good track record in that regard.

[blam]

Sunday 2004 bump.

[bc2]

.

[Quix]

Fascinating.

Thanks.

[SunkenCiv]

Not a ping, just a GGG update.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[Ciexyz]

btt

[SunkenCiv]

Just updating the GGG information, not sending a general distribution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)