05-29-2009, 11:49 AM
I'll try to avoid a sea of quotations.
That is certainly a position you are allowed to take. But I regard the position that it is a reasonable inference that the Versigny figure represents a heavily armoured man a rather weak one. What about the position that it represents a local deity? The 14th century mickey mouse figure is a representation of St. Cristopher. Some figures of Cernunnos (such as the one on the Gundestrup cauldron, on the top of my head) has the god wearing a striped suit. Some of the votive figures out there have quite blocky heads. We have far more votive religious figures than we have figures of gladiators, from both celto-roman and roman contexts, at least to my limited knowledge.
We cannot write either position off. But it is a far cry from declaring that the Versigny figure without doubt represents a heavily armoured man, which was my (erronous?) inference from the 1) position in your argument.
The thorough analysis of the strict oral preservation patterns in folk tunes has repeatedly showed itself to be a useful tool in historical research. Not the one and all, but certainly, it can be, when analyzed and criticized, as useful a single reference in Tacitus - who himself is keen on repeating hearsay, I might add. In the Buskerud case, there was a direct link between folk tunes and a find, right where the tales and tunes reported that the knight had fallen. Folk tunes and tales do not have what is called independent value as a source (I'm not sure about the exact english citation), but they most certainly have a place as complementary sources if their use can be justified. In the Queen Gunnhild case it was not and was indeed later entirely falsified, in the Buskerud case it lead to a discovery that would never have been made without those folk traditions. Nobody is claiming that the excavated armour belongs to the (named) knight in the folk tune. That would be going too far, as it is not substantiated from other sources.
Now I might be wrong, but serious reconstructions (here I follow Bishop in considering the early interpretations from art by Alf and Coussin as rather primitive and not really helpful, with their marked aversion to archaeological finds of real material contra pictorial evidence) of the l.seg. started out with access to finds made now more than a hundred years ago in addition to better material. The Newstead, Zugmantel, Caruntum and Eining digs were made in the late 19th/early 20th century. They were not recognized as l.seg. pieces immediately, but the aforementioned authors knew of them. It was only after the Corbridge Hoard was excavated that real, serious attempts at reconstructions was made (as opposed to drawings off art and offhand referencing finds). By then a great deal of excavated pieces were available, and a large amount of pictorial evidence had been publizised - and speculated on by the authors mentioned above. That is a far cry and a far more solid basis than a single reference and a possibly unrelated figure.
So you are saying that experimental archaeology does not need to rely on source interpretation beyond "this sort of looks what this guy may have described here"? :wink: I am not happy with my own experiments at constructing 13th/early 14th century aketons, and I have a sea of pictorial evidence, some surviving pieces less than 50 years removed in time, and written ordnances describing their construction.
Don't get me wrong. Everybody is free to speculate, and it is entirely reasonable to hypothetize that the Versigny figure representents a gladiator as mentioned by Tacitus. However, with the source situations as it is in this case, I think far more work (trying to find more supporting sources) is needed before one can make a statement that it is likely that it is. I note that all the literature on the subject is very careful in its statements. I don't want to turn archaeology into a natural science (although, to put it mildly, a great deal of natural science is as heavily dependent on subjective opinions as archaeology is) but equally I don't think it should devolve into some sort of weird game of source association.
[edit: I avoided a sea, but I see I ended up with a sizeable lake nonetheless]
Quote:You are seeking a level of assurance that (in my opinion) is entirely unreasonable in the field of archaeology. As archaeologists, we deal in "reasonable inference", and hardly ever in "certainty".
That is certainly a position you are allowed to take. But I regard the position that it is a reasonable inference that the Versigny figure represents a heavily armoured man a rather weak one. What about the position that it represents a local deity? The 14th century mickey mouse figure is a representation of St. Cristopher. Some figures of Cernunnos (such as the one on the Gundestrup cauldron, on the top of my head) has the god wearing a striped suit. Some of the votive figures out there have quite blocky heads. We have far more votive religious figures than we have figures of gladiators, from both celto-roman and roman contexts, at least to my limited knowledge.
We cannot write either position off. But it is a far cry from declaring that the Versigny figure without doubt represents a heavily armoured man, which was my (erronous?) inference from the 1) position in your argument.
Quote:Right there -- there's your logical fallacy. No self-respecting historical archaeologist should rely on folklore (in my humble opinion).
The thorough analysis of the strict oral preservation patterns in folk tunes has repeatedly showed itself to be a useful tool in historical research. Not the one and all, but certainly, it can be, when analyzed and criticized, as useful a single reference in Tacitus - who himself is keen on repeating hearsay, I might add. In the Buskerud case, there was a direct link between folk tunes and a find, right where the tales and tunes reported that the knight had fallen. Folk tunes and tales do not have what is called independent value as a source (I'm not sure about the exact english citation), but they most certainly have a place as complementary sources if their use can be justified. In the Queen Gunnhild case it was not and was indeed later entirely falsified, in the Buskerud case it lead to a discovery that would never have been made without those folk traditions. Nobody is claiming that the excavated armour belongs to the (named) knight in the folk tune. That would be going too far, as it is not substantiated from other sources.
Quote:Think of the long process of illuminating the workings of "lorica segmentata". With your hard-line approach, it would never have got off the ground!
Now I might be wrong, but serious reconstructions (here I follow Bishop in considering the early interpretations from art by Alf and Coussin as rather primitive and not really helpful, with their marked aversion to archaeological finds of real material contra pictorial evidence) of the l.seg. started out with access to finds made now more than a hundred years ago in addition to better material. The Newstead, Zugmantel, Caruntum and Eining digs were made in the late 19th/early 20th century. They were not recognized as l.seg. pieces immediately, but the aforementioned authors knew of them. It was only after the Corbridge Hoard was excavated that real, serious attempts at reconstructions was made (as opposed to drawings off art and offhand referencing finds). By then a great deal of excavated pieces were available, and a large amount of pictorial evidence had been publizised - and speculated on by the authors mentioned above. That is a far cry and a far more solid basis than a single reference and a possibly unrelated figure.
Quote:I appreciate your position, Endre. I really do. But it is only appropriate in a Living History context, where people expect some degree of probability. And entirely inappropriate in Experimental Archaeology, as we try to make sense of something peculiar.
So you are saying that experimental archaeology does not need to rely on source interpretation beyond "this sort of looks what this guy may have described here"? :wink: I am not happy with my own experiments at constructing 13th/early 14th century aketons, and I have a sea of pictorial evidence, some surviving pieces less than 50 years removed in time, and written ordnances describing their construction.
Don't get me wrong. Everybody is free to speculate, and it is entirely reasonable to hypothetize that the Versigny figure representents a gladiator as mentioned by Tacitus. However, with the source situations as it is in this case, I think far more work (trying to find more supporting sources) is needed before one can make a statement that it is likely that it is. I note that all the literature on the subject is very careful in its statements. I don't want to turn archaeology into a natural science (although, to put it mildly, a great deal of natural science is as heavily dependent on subjective opinions as archaeology is) but equally I don't think it should devolve into some sort of weird game of source association.
[edit: I avoided a sea, but I see I ended up with a sizeable lake nonetheless]
