Ancient ruins

[Aelia Jusa]

Yesterday in my Roman society and civilisation lecture, we were talking about Hadrian's wall, and our lecturer was telling us about the milecastle at South Shields, which is the easternmost milecastle along the wall. A few years ago, the gate of the milecastle was re-erected. I'm not sure how much restoration and rebuilding of the gate took place, but suffice to say it was on the ground, and now it's hanging up where it once stood. And there was an uproar amongst English archaeologists - they objected to the fact that the ancient site had been tampered with in any way, saying it should have been left just the way it was.

And from that longwinded story , my question is, do you think we should just leave ancient ruins alone? Would you like to see them fix up the colosseum perhaps, or rebuild a mile or so of Hadrian's wall to it's former glory? Or is it better not to do anything to them and preserve the mysteries of their past?

[Epona]

LEAVE THEM ALONE!

I'm an archaeologist - and it's not just an aesthetic question, but a scientific one. Once you start tampering with a site, you are destroying any chance of learning anything new about it in the future.

New things are learned every day about building methods and styles, and it is often the case that reconstructions are discovered to be completely wrong 20 years after they have been done (Knossos on the isle of Crete is a good example - the reconstruction there is a complete hatchet job) but you have DAMAGED the site by making the reconstruction. Once done, that site is as good as useless for learning anything new.

I am in favour of making reconstructions away from the site itself - they can be educational and interesting - but once you have damaged the site, that is it - irreversible damage done FOREVER.

So it ISN'T just a question of does it look pretty - there is a wealth of knowledge - archaeology is a record of our past, much like an ancient library. You can't bring something back once you've altered it.

[Galadria]

LOL, Epona, all the time that I was reading Aelia's post, I could sense your blood pressure climbing. I agree with you, BTW.

[Epona]

Galadria, LOL!
No, my blood pressure wasn't rising at all - now if Aelia had been out on a site with a concrete mixer, that would have been a different matter

Incidentally I was told I had slightly high blood pressure a couple of weeks ago when I went for a routine check-up. That surprised me, because I have always had low blood pressure before! When I returned, full of anxiety, for a second reading - it was low again - what a relief, I was told the machine must have been faulty for my previous reading (it was a digital one rather than the old ones with the dial) but I was bloody worrying about if for 2 weeks! What a thing to do to me!

[Encard]

Hmm... I suppose I probably shouldn't mention the fact that I'M there with a concrete mixer now, typing this on my laptop... j/k... I don't have a laptop... Hmm.. I'd say leave them alone, agreeing with Epona and because there's a good chance we'd do a shoddy job and mess it up... *shrug*

[/)eathKiller]

oookayeee.... am I the only one who realizes that we are continueing to call places like "Atlantis" mysteriouse though they are right in our back yard? 0.o why do we care so darn much about ruins in england, that place is so old they should just leave the past burried! In the movie "Spriggan" a very good lesson is taught... Mankind finds Noah's ark and plans on extrapulating DNA and stuff from it, what they find is that it was, in part, housing alien life below the surface, life which shouldn't have been released into the open-air... and then you have the government and military getting invoulved and before ya know it they bring out all of their Area51 projects and people are getting turned inside out by a little kid with a baseball cap named Colonel Mcdougal who just happens to be Telikenetic!!! AAAAH!... The moral of this story: If its down THERE it don't belong UP HERE ya know what I'm sayin'?

And need I talk about a real case? Look at all the stuff that happened the night King Tut's Tomb was opened... A WHOLE LOT OF STUFF ended up happening which 99.9% of was bad! and new diseases and stuff spread around that little exchevation team too Go figure... 9_9 I honestly think that they shouldn't worry about stuff like that and care about the future, we know about our history from books....if we just interperate them correctly then we won't have trouble, though keeping sites intact is important too! that was, should we need evidence, we can extrapulate it where needed, but innevitably, the fact is considered trivia, is written in YET ANOTHER BOOK and then generations later is RE-examines leading to the finding of a LACK of evidence hence a PARADOX! AAAAAAAH!!!!

[Epona]

Originally posted by /)eathKiller: oookayeee.... am I the only one who realizes that we are continueing to call places like "Atlantis" mysteriouse though they are right in our back yard? 0.o why do we care so darn much about ruins in england, that place is so old they should just leave the past burried! In the movie "Spriggan" a very good lesson is taught... Mankind finds Noah's ark and plans on extrapulating DNA and stuff from it, what they find is that it was, in part, housing alien life below the surface, life which shouldn't have been released into the open-air... and then you have the government and military getting invoulved and before ya know it they bring out all of their Area51 projects and people are getting turned inside out by a little kid with a baseball cap named Colonel Mcdougal who just happens to be Telikenetic!!! AAAAH!... The moral of this story: If its down THERE it don't belong UP HERE ya know what I'm sayin'? And need I talk about a real case? Look at all the stuff that happened the night King Tut's Tomb was opened... A WHOLE LOT OF STUFF ended up happening which 99.9% of was bad! and new diseases and stuff spread around that little exchevation team too Go figure... 9_9 I honestly think that they shouldn't worry about stuff like that and care about the future, we know about our history from books....if we just interperate them correctly then we won't have trouble, though keeping sites intact is important too! that was, should we need evidence, we can extrapulate it where needed, but innevitably, the fact is considered trivia, is written in YET ANOTHER BOOK and then generations later is RE-examines leading to the finding of a LACK of evidence hence a PARADOX! AAAAAAAH!!!!

Bollocks.

[Aelia Jusa]

Originally posted by Galadria: LOL, Epona, all the time that I was reading Aelia's post, I could sense your blood pressure climbing. I agree with you, BTW.

LOL, well I don't want to be responsible for Epona popping a vein or something . I actually don't agree with tampering with ancient sites either, for the purposes of not destroying evidence to the past but also because I think any reconstruction we could do would be disrespectful and destroy the 'sense' of these places. Our lecturer actually said he couldn't see the problem with rebuilding the colosseum, but I think that would be hideous. On another forum I was talking to someone about his visit to the Palatine, and he spoke of all the ghosts up there, and the sense of magnificence that you get imagining what it must have been like. Any reconstruction I think would be sterile and new, and not do it justice at all.

On the other hand, if you look at something like Hadrian's wall, I can't see a problem with reconstructing a few hundred yards of it, just so we could see how imposing it must have been and how his symbol of end of empire must have looked.

How about access? I mean, you used to be able to go into the tholos tombs at Vergina, but now you can only look from outside. Do you think we should be able to see these ancient sites closely? Then of course you have the worry of vandalism and theft, like all the graffiti on Stonehenge, but it's a shame I think that sites have to be completely closed to the public.

[Aelia Jusa]

Originally posted by Epona: quote: Originally posted by /)eathKiller: oookayeee.... am I the only one who realizes that we are continueing to call places like "Atlantis" mysteriouse though they are right in our back yard? 0.o why do we care so darn much about ruins in england, that place is so old they should just leave the past burried! In the movie "Spriggan" a very good lesson is taught... Mankind finds Noah's ark and plans on extrapulating DNA and stuff from it, what they find is that it was, in part, housing alien life below the surface, life which shouldn't have been released into the open-air... and then you have the government and military getting invoulved and before ya know it they bring out all of their Area51 projects and people are getting turned inside out by a little kid with a baseball cap named Colonel Mcdougal who just happens to be Telikenetic!!! AAAAH!... The moral of this story: If its down THERE it don't belong UP HERE ya know what I'm sayin'? And need I talk about a real case? Look at all the stuff that happened the night King Tut's Tomb was opened... A WHOLE LOT OF STUFF ended up happening which 99.9% of was bad! and new diseases and stuff spread around that little exchevation team too Go figure... 9_9 I honestly think that they shouldn't worry about stuff like that and care about the future, we know about our history from books....if we just interperate them correctly then we won't have trouble, though keeping sites intact is important too! that was, should we need evidence, we can extrapulate it where needed, but innevitably, the fact is considered trivia, is written in YET ANOTHER BOOK and then generations later is RE-examines leading to the finding of a LACK of evidence hence a PARADOX! AAAAAAAH!!!!

Bollocks.[/QUOTE]LOL Epona

[Epona]

Originally posted by Aelia Jusa: On the other hand, if you look at something like Hadrian's wall, I can't see a problem with reconstructing a few hundred yards of it, just so we could see how imposing it must have been and how his symbol of end of empire must have looked.

Aelia, have you ever visited Hadrian's Wall? It is for the most part bleak and haunting, out on the windswept hills of Northumberland and Cumbria. You can imagine the Roman legions shivering on the hillside, wishing they were back home in their native lands such as Spain, wondering why they had been posted to such a far-flung and desolate spot (join the army, see the world, LOL). The foundations still exist, and in some places it is a few feet high. Now why go and ruin that wonderful atmosphere by rebuilding it in situ, when there is a perfectly good and imposing reconstruction of part of it in a nearby museum? (although I forget which one - maybe at Housesteads fort?)

Also there is plenty still to be learned from the wall, and excavations are constantly turning up new information about construction techniques, taxation, army supplies, trade routes etc.

At the Vindolanda fort a few years ago a whole pile of what were described in the site report as 'greasy shavings' were found. Upon inspection they turned out to be wood from the back of wax tablets used for writing. The styli used to imprint on the wax had pressed through into the wood. These were painstakingly reconstructed, and turned out to be one of the richest finds in Britain (or in fact across the whole Roman empire) and once pieced together and translated were found to detail all sorts of interesting information which taught the world a LOT about the Roman army - supply lists, laundry inventories, troop movement orders etc. Now had someone thought 20 years ago - 'mmmm... lets reconstruct a bit of that fort' then those seemingly worthless 'greasy shavings' may NEVER have been found! - and knowledge we now take for granted about the Roman army may never have been known!

[ 04-16-2002, 07:58 PM: Message edited by: Epona ]