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Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#81

Post by [deleted] »

dpark wrote: post #71
mythrwy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washington Post has become a rather low bar in general the last few years. I've stopped reading it all together and am disappointed to see the number of articles from it cropping up on HN lately. Also (off topic) they have begin a policy of shadowbanning commenters in their comment sections who disagree with their "official" policy on things. It's really barely one step above Brietbart now days in my opinion.

> Also (off topic) they have begin a policy of shadowbanning commenters in their comment sections who disagree with their "official" policy on things. This policy is known to exist or you believe it does? Serious question.

[deleted]

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#82

Post by jacquesm »

literallycancer wrote: post #78
viggity wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gee, it is almost like white people make up a huge part of the population. Apply a little Bayes Theorem and visit back when you've run the numbers. Also, fwiw, Islam is not a race, hence you can't be racist for criticizing it. It is an ideological system. In that way it is no different than Democracy, Communism, Buddhism, Capitalism, Mormonism, Anarchism, etc, etc. Race doesn't define any of those ideologies either.…

Yeah, look at them evil Muslims.[1] Fundamentalists, every single one, right? Islam has issues, of course, just like any other ideology. Too bad the Wahhabis are largely successful in exporting their flavor of Islam.. but I guess that's what happens when you prop up oppressive regimes in the name of stability (and preferential access to natural resources). [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZIqdrFeFBk

The thing that really rams this home for me is pictures of Teheran before the revolution:

http://www.vintag.es/2014/09/pictures-of-tehran-iran-ca-1960...

The problem with all this is if it achieves escape velocity then it can take a long long time to undo the damage. We're almost four decades into Iran being an Islamic state and I wonder how that would have all ended if there had not been so much meddling in Iran and Iraq (and less money flowing to the house of Saud).

Quite possibly Iran (then Persia) would have been a real powerhouse in the region, highly educated citizenry and vast natural resources.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#83

Post by mason240 »

yawz wrote: post #15

History is written by the... victors. It's not surprising to get a single-sided story when the other side didn't care much about leaving written detailed records.

A common refrain hurled by those completely ignorant of how historiography works.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#84

Post by throwaway91111 »

tacomonstrous wrote: post #61
arethuza wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of Scythia - somewhat bizarrely Scottish legends claim that the Scots were originally from there! "They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the…

It's not an unreasonable legend. Conventional wisdom is that all Indo-Europeans sprang from the steppes of Central Asia. Having it mentioned in a 14th century declaration is pretty fascinating!

The proto-indo-European migration is thought to have been a cultural and linguistic migration, not a mass physical migration or a conquest.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#85

Post by mason240 »

tonmoy wrote: post #22
yawz wrote: post #15

History is written by the... victors. It's not surprising to get a single-sided story when the other side didn't care much about leaving written detailed records.

The Huns were victors though, so the age old adage may need some updating

They lost at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains and were driven from Roman lands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Catalaunian_Plai...

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#86

Post by mason240 »

tacomonstrous wrote: post #61
arethuza wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of Scythia - somewhat bizarrely Scottish legends claim that the Scots were originally from there! "They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the…

It's not an unreasonable legend. Conventional wisdom is that all Indo-Europeans sprang from the steppes of Central Asia. Having it mentioned in a 14th century declaration is pretty fascinating!

That is was written in the 14th century makes it very suspect.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#87

Post by vetinari »

marcosdumay wrote: post #41
tonmoy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Huns were victors though, so the age old adage may need some updating

Yep. History is written by... the people that cared to write it down. And Romans wrote a lot.

That and the random chance of having your writings preserved through centuries.

Burning down the libraries in not something unheard of.

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#88

Post by mason240 »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #76
senior_james wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Islam is not a race. Also, an act of terror by someone that just happens to be Christian is completely different than an act by someone doing it in the name of a religion, like Islam. "plain old racism" It's not racist to recognize patterns. You can't even draw Muhammad without getting death threats or even killed. The same can't be said about Jesus. The majority of the major terror attacks in the last 10 years have…

If you read upthread it was explained the final fall of the Roman Empire could be attributed to treating their refugees like dirt and lying to them. Also, I'm currently in US and I don't feel my way of life is being destroyed by Muslim people. I think anti-Muslim sentiment is more of a negative influence on my life, as I work in academia and have had to deal with co workers and students being unable to continue resea…

>If you read upthread it was explained the final fall of the Roman Empire could be attributed to treating their refugees like dirt and lying to them.

How to spot someone ignorant of history: Use of the argument "Thing X (that just happens to relate to contemporary political angle the are pushing) caused the fall of Rome."

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#89

Post by mason240 »

amyjess wrote: post #36
jacquesm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the linked article: > Mistreatment by provincial Roman governors soon led to widespread discontent among the Visigoths and, by 376 CE, open rebellion had broken out. In other words: treat your refugees as if they're people.

So, this is also how Rome fell in 476. My source for this is a documentary I watched about a decade ago (back when the History Channel actually aired history stuff). By the mid-470s, the Eastern Empire was rich, but the Western Empire was poor and struggling in every capacity. The Western Empire's army was so dependent on Germanic soldiers that the Emperor was a puppet of the commander of the Germanic forces, Ricimer…

>And that is how the Western Roman Empire ceased to exist. Breaking your promises to your refugees is a good way to get overthrown.

How to spot someone ignorant of history: Use of the argument "Thing X (that just happens to relate to contemporary political angle they are pushing) caused the fall of Rome."

Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story

#90

Post by etrevino »

endisukaj wrote: post #57

Wow. What a weak article. It basically tells nothing other than the fact that the Huns were people (we knew that) and that different people may lead different lives (we knew that also).

I was thinking the same thing. As someone who spent a lot of his PhD time with Late Antiquity as a secondary area of specialization, I can say that an enormous amount of this is "duh". It does not uproot the commonly accepted research by any stretch.
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