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I know a fair amount about gems, and a bit about their role in the classical era, though not much about their valuation. I'll shotgun some random facts below but happy to attempt to answer and gem questions. One thing to remember is that (as mentioned above) ancient gem definitions weren't the same as modern ones. 'Sapphire' for a long time almost certainly referred to what we now call lapis, at least initially, and 'emerald' included both true emeralds from Egypt (though, having looked at samples from that deposit, they are kind of lovely) and other green gems like chrome chalcedony from Turkey. Ie, here's a pair of Roman earrings with Egyptian emerald crystals (all jewelry pictures taken from Christie's auctions, great resource):  and a Roman chrome chalcedony ring:  They did know that these two weren't exactly the same thing (anyone who shaped them would likely realize the differences in hardness and toughness right away) but they were both held under the 'smaragdus' banner anyway. They did love their carnelian, though as with today a lot of what's was actually on the market was likely heat treated or dyed to give a more uniform and intense red color (what comes out of the ground is usually more orange and more unevenly colored). Like, this is a Roman carnelian ring:  This is what a more typical natural carnelian looks like:  That's not to say that solid, totally uniform red carnelian doesn't exist in nature, but it's always suspicious, and we know for a fact they had a well-developed gem-treating industry. As Pliny the elder put it, Pliny posted:I have in my library certain books by authors now living, whom I would under no circumstances name containing, for example, information on how to make a sardonyx from carnelian: in other words, how to transform one stone into another. To tell the truth, there is no fraud or deceit in the world that yields greater gain and profit than that of counterfeiting gems. In addition to the classic signet rings, cameos were another big category of jewel that we don't see as much of today (no market demand--lots of jewelers have drawers full of them they'd love to get rid of). These were largely carved from rocks like onyx that have alternating bands of color, allowing a nice contrast between the carved foreground and the background. Like the carnelian above this was often produced by dyeing of less-colorful agates.  Here's a picture showing some before and after, even some text if you don't mind using a magnifying glass to read it:  (sorry, it's the best image I could find).  Here's a Roman signet ring, carved from agate that has almost certainly been dyed as above. The preferred method was (and is) to soak the stone in honey to allow the porous layers to absorb sugar, and then heat it (particularly in a reducing atmosphere, ie the bottom of a burning dungheap) to carbonize the sugar, leaving black deposits throughout. Today this is usually helped along with sulphuric acid. The person who has done the best research on this that I have seen is Çigdem Lüle, those papers are worth looking up if you get a chance.
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Jun 20, 2018 19:18
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Amethyst was way more expensive before the extensive South American deposits were discovered. Of course the price today is also strongly depressed by the abundance of undisclosed synthetics.
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Jun 20, 2018 19:48
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HEY GUNS posted:i would gladly drape myself in cameos and carnelian, my dude. By get rid of, what price do you mean?
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Jun 20, 2018 21:19
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Carnelian and cameo prices are fairly different. Carnelian cut en cabochon (ie, smooth without engraving) can be had dirt-cheap, if you don't mind getting commercial cut goods that are almost certainly dyed. More if you want something custom cut (generally better workmanship) and made from undyed material, depending. But don't pay 8/ct for it. Cameos nowadays can be hand-carved with varying degrees of workmanship, ranging from OK to inspirational in quality, but they can also be made by putting a metal negative on the stone and using a powerful ultrasonic vibrations and grind the shape into the stone. The results are uniform and kind of lovely but they are obviously very inexpensive to make, and you can also do seals and even some kinds of full carving. I suspect most of what jewelers can't sell is the middling to lower grade boring stuff, rather than the very toppest end material. I don't know much beyond that, though, since I don't buy or sell them.
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Jun 20, 2018 22:30
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Ooh, that is really neat. You can see several of them were drilled as beads as well. edit: that said, the presence of a couple faceted stones make me wonder if some of the stones were swapped out later. I'd love to know what each stone is too. Scarodactyl fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Jun 21, 2018 |
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Jun 21, 2018 02:18
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I remember one of the texts in my Near Eastern religion class argued that the various old testament reports of neighboring peoples (and apostate Israelites) sacrificing children must be untrue, and went on to basically suggest that them having written this in the old testament was directly equivalent to later blood libel against the Jews in Europe and elsewhere. It was really a bit of a weird read; it felt like they were maybe just a bit overeager to suggest that the Jews deserved ill treatment. There has certainly been a traditional association between Carthaginian child sacrifice and the Moloch sacrifices described in the old testament; that said, I don't know that that's a very modern idea. Scarodactyl fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Jul 3, 2018 |
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Jul 3, 2018 08:00
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Silver2195 posted:Bad effects from inbreeding are not guaranteed; maybe the Ptolemies just didn't have many unhealthy recessive genes.
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Jul 12, 2018 06:10
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Just blame it on lead instead.
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Jul 26, 2018 14:57
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Alhazred posted:As far as I can tell the romans didn't have their "own gods". They worshiped spirits but had no pantheon or creation myths on their own.
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Aug 13, 2018 08:18
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Grand Fromage posted:He's being very specific. The native Roman religion has no named gods. What we think of as the Roman gods are one of the many branches of the old pan-Mediterranean religion, likely first adopted from Etruscan forms.
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Aug 13, 2018 09:47
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I know I missed Commodus chat by a few days, but I forgot I made a Commodus emote a couple years ago:  That golden collar is amazing. I love the quality of goldwork you see in a lot of ancient jewelry.
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Aug 27, 2018 06:49
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In general having a 'theory of everything' is one of the leading signs of crackpottery.
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Aug 31, 2018 07:19
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(There has since been older pottery found in China)(But the general point does stand) I would think you could do something with wood depending on the temperatures involved, or stone depending on logistics. I'm not sure people did though.
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Sep 14, 2018 05:26
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:forests full of apple trees and blackberry bushes (Also apple trees are not native to north america so I assume they meant other native fruit trees like pawpaws or whatever).
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Sep 20, 2018 17:14
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Actually, aside from the pawpaw what fruit trees are even native to the southeast? There is definitely some management involved, but our pawpaws sucker aggressively and they definitely tend to form natural thickets. We are constantly digging out saplings.
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Sep 20, 2018 17:32
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Maypop is a passion fruit, which grows on vines, and the jelly palm is from south america. But those others would make a lot of sense. It is hard to mentally fit pawpaws into that role.
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Sep 20, 2018 17:57
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Squalid posted:OH MAN check out how badass the Assyrians were:
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Sep 25, 2018 02:04
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You're forgetting the phantom black cats I keep hearing about from prospectors.
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Sep 28, 2018 13:55
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If there's anything I learned in my semester of art history, the Romans produced a lot of great art while the Byzantines produced a bunch of garbage, so I think the distinction is warranted.
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Oct 3, 2018 20:55
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https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30019360091
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Oct 10, 2018 02:54
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Just look at what they did to determine some precambrian fossils were indeed animals. It amazes me what traces can be teased out now.
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Oct 20, 2018 09:56
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Rome was founded by... ...the lost Roman legion!!!!!
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Oct 22, 2018 07:25
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I was never gonna fall behind, until I got high. I was gonna outcompete mankind, but then I got high. Now my entire species is extinct, and I know why...
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Oct 26, 2018 18:38
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They were just really concerned that nobody find out that Rome's true name was Jeffrey.
Scarodactyl fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Nov 15, 2018 |
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Nov 15, 2018 03:27
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LingcodKilla posted:Huh. I would toss apples across campus in high school with a sling.
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Nov 15, 2018 19:27
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LingcodKilla posted:A sling. I made it from leather with a canvass pouch. I got really good with distance but couldn’t aim very well. Depending on how you swing it it’s very hard to get the opposite of vertical or horizontal.
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Nov 15, 2018 19:37
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:no, even weirdo tories are more likely to cite magna carta etc rather than any claims of ancient royal legitimacy  Snorri included a euhemerized version of Norse myth as an introduction to his Edda--apparently all the kings of the region are descended from some guy named Odin who came from Asgard, ie Asia. Yes, that all apparently got imported into our genealogy when my dad hit British royalty.
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Nov 19, 2018 21:30
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cheetah7071 posted:There's some theories that Tut had an unusually extravagant burial because the priests were all indebted to him for undoing the religious fuckery that Akhenaten implemented I thought he was thought to have been more of a puppet of the priesthood, so indebted might not be the right word? But maybe that's outdated.
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Dec 6, 2018 01:42
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I mean, sort of? But they weren't unrelated pantheons either, and at least Zeus and Jupiter are etymologically linked and likely derived from the same indoeuropean god (along with Deus and Tues and others, I guess depending who you ask). But ancient choices for syncretism weren't always so lucky or motivated by actual similarities (looking at you, Dionysus-Osiris).
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Dec 23, 2018 10:53
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EricBauman posted:Numen?
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Dec 26, 2018 02:22
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Which liquid are you envisioning?
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Jan 9, 2019 18:08
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There was a sort of general belief in ancient near eastern cosmology that there was a freshwater sea under the earth called the Apsu, distinct from the saltwater ocean.
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Jan 10, 2019 16:24
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Well according to other sources when he died the air filled with mist and darkness fell, a star fell from the sky carried by a giant eagle and the statue of Zeus in Babylon was shaken. I bet their diagnosis doesn't cover those sources.
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Jan 28, 2019 02:27
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Dibs of Maximilian I. Well-intentioned, in a job I (nor pretty much anyone) should be in at all, destined to screw up and get killed by my own subjects.
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Feb 23, 2019 23:21
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Trajan The real question is how would he feel about himself being at best the second most famous Cato, beaten out by Closeau's manservant?
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Feb 24, 2019 08:52
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Telsa Cola posted:I vaguely remember records about a fish that would get you high.
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Mar 20, 2019 10:10
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King of False Promises posted:The same artist who did the Nero sculpture did a few others, too. Here's Caesar: 
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Mar 23, 2019 04:05
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Imagined posted:For real. For reference a week+ supply for a fairly regular smoker (like not "all day every day" but more like "every evening after work") might be ~7 grams.
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Jun 13, 2019 18:59
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SlothfulCobra posted:There's also schools of thought that have weird things to say about intestinal parasites being part of the natural gut fauna that our bodies have evolved to deal with. There was a story I heard a while back about a guy who went off to Africa to get himself voluntarily infected with hookworm to treat his own severe allergies. So, in conclusion, parasites are a land of contrasts. Zudgemud posted:Allergies are in essence due to our immune system not being trained or triggered properly....
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Jun 25, 2019 21:46
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| # ¿ Apr 20, 2024 05:31 |
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Hives will def put you in that kind of mood.
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Jun 27, 2019 04:37
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