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Seikilos epitaph

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Re: Seikilos epitaph

#21

Post by wutangson1 »

fifnir wrote: post #11
tuomosipola wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the pronunciation is quite good. Not your classical Attic Greek pronunciation but it shouldn't be since the stele is from a later time and from Anatolia where people would have spoken a Ionic dialect originally.

Hi, are you saying this with a some linguistic expertise ? As a Greek without much background in linguistics etc I noticed a some pretty strong mistakes (to my ear) and since the original is pretty understandable to me I assume (potentially mistakenly) that the pronunciation can't have changed THAT much. She pronounces ai as 'aee' but ai definitely an 'ɛ' sound (as in head: /hɛd/) in modern greek She then pronounces…

It makes sense why it would sound terrible to your ears. The way 'ancient' Greek is taught in U.S. universities- referred to as Attic Greek- is based on the pronunciation ascribed to Erasmus- the Dutch Scholar. Of course, it is just a theory.

Re: Seikilos epitaph

#22

Post by mirimir »

DanBC wrote: post #20
mirimir wrote: post #2

> ... in about 1893, as it "was broken at the bottom, its base was sawn off straight so that it could stand and serve as a pedestal for Mrs Purser's flowerpots"; this caused the loss of one line of text, i.e., while the stele would now stand upright, the grinding had obliterated the last line of the inscription. Sigh.

See also some of the standing stones from Avebury stone circle being taken and used for building material. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avebury https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/avebury

Yes, it's been the norm to reuse stone from older construction. It's often more or less in the right place, and already reasonably shaped. Also, during cultural changes, destruction of old stuff was itself a key goal. And not just stone. Parchment from old manuscripts got scraped for reuse, or became book bindings.

It's just ironic that this stone turned out to be so valuable.

Re: Seikilos epitaph

#23

Post by posterboy »

utopcell wrote: post #16
mirimir wrote: post #2

> ... in about 1893, as it "was broken at the bottom, its base was sawn off straight so that it could stand and serve as a pedestal for Mrs Purser's flowerpots"; this caused the loss of one line of text, i.e., while the stele would now stand upright, the grinding had obliterated the last line of the inscription. Sigh.

When the antikythera mechanism was recovered, it was embedded in a lump of mud. Nobody realized what it was so they left it in storage in a museum until a long time after, when the lump, now dried up, broke into pieces revealing its secrets.

That's not destructive, though.

Re: Seikilos epitaph

#24

Post by utopcell »

posterboy wrote: post #23
utopcell wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the antikythera mechanism was recovered, it was embedded in a lump of mud. Nobody realized what it was so they left it in storage in a museum until a long time after, when the lump, now dried up, broke into pieces revealing its secrets.

That's not destructive, though.

Well..it broke into pieces.
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