10-09-2011, 04:36 AM
Back it up? A little confrontational don't cha think? :roll:
Okay, I have only personal experience from working with historians, curators and archeologists on replica armor and sculptures for museums. But that experience is extensive and based in both Greek and Roman history.
NEVER in my experience has an archeologist, historian or curator handed me text to read when they hire me. The show me pictures. Some are of excavated examples, but the vast majority are images from sculpture, paintings, pottery or coinage.
Writing has been the domain of the elite classes whether they were religeous or political. What has survived? The history of the culture's leadership, their political maneuverings and ancenstory. In many cultures common everyday life of the populace was considered trivial and not worthy of documenting. The labor classes were illiterate. So, there is little written about them.
I did say: Writings are rare, often are not contemporary to the subject or have been edited extensively throughout the ages.
The percentage of verifiable contemporary writings is minute compared to the hundreds of thousands of artifacts that can be studied. You are far more likely to learn the techniques of an ancient Egyptian potter by seeing tomb images of him working, than you would by trying to find a fragment of text describing in words how he made his pottery.
Artistic images in decoration and on everyday tools was how the ancients communicated information about their lives. They couldn't write and the elite didn't care about documenting what they saw as mundane.
I don't want to high-jack this thread, because it's not about this... :lol:
Okay, I have only personal experience from working with historians, curators and archeologists on replica armor and sculptures for museums. But that experience is extensive and based in both Greek and Roman history.
NEVER in my experience has an archeologist, historian or curator handed me text to read when they hire me. The show me pictures. Some are of excavated examples, but the vast majority are images from sculpture, paintings, pottery or coinage.
Writing has been the domain of the elite classes whether they were religeous or political. What has survived? The history of the culture's leadership, their political maneuverings and ancenstory. In many cultures common everyday life of the populace was considered trivial and not worthy of documenting. The labor classes were illiterate. So, there is little written about them.
I did say: Writings are rare, often are not contemporary to the subject or have been edited extensively throughout the ages.
The percentage of verifiable contemporary writings is minute compared to the hundreds of thousands of artifacts that can be studied. You are far more likely to learn the techniques of an ancient Egyptian potter by seeing tomb images of him working, than you would by trying to find a fragment of text describing in words how he made his pottery.
Artistic images in decoration and on everyday tools was how the ancients communicated information about their lives. They couldn't write and the elite didn't care about documenting what they saw as mundane.
I don't want to high-jack this thread, because it's not about this... :lol:
