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Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

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101–110 of 194 posts

Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#101
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it absurd that you complain about the cookie banner while ignoring the absolute trash advertising on the actual page (which appears even though I am running an adblocker). I like cookie banners, I get to set my preferences and if a website serially abuses them they don't have the excuse that I consented by surfing to the page or something. If they really engage in abuse, I can take part in legal action. Meanwh…

This isn't a cookie banner. It's a full page blocking modal FFS. Way to conveniently argue past the point.

It's not on desktop, I just clicked it away in under a second although I don't read German. The point isn't all that special, is what I'm saying. The advertising on the underlying page is significantly worse.

Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#102

It's funny to think that the fantasy/speculative fiction trope of "precursor civilization that has advanced tech" was probably grounded in the historical memory of people happening upon ruins, weapons and artifacts of extraordinary craftsmanship.

And oral history I'm sure. We will probably never know how advanced and widespread some of these ancient technologies are but the existence of artifacts that are far, far ahead of anything we would expect historically (e.g. Antikythera Mechanism, Gobekli Tepe) suggests there are some big, big holes in our records of the past.

I find the ancient stone works the best evidence for some kind of advanced civilization in the far past. (No not aliens). Some date back 10.000 years ago. The precision and similarities between different sites all over the world is incredible. We are just in the beginning of this research field.

Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it absurd that you complain about the cookie banner while ignoring the absolute trash advertising on the actual page (which appears even though I am running an adblocker). I like cookie banners, I get to set my preferences and if a website serially abuses them they don't have the excuse that I consented by surfing to the page or something. If they really engage in abuse, I can take part in legal action. Meanwh…

I just spit my drink through my nose seeing that someone actually feels the need to defend cookie banners, lol. You have a fair point on how the inline ads themselves are trash, but I wouldn’t choose one over the other—I’d have neither of them.

I would prefer that cookies and tracking didn't exist, but given that they do I like having the option to opt out of them when I first visit a website.

Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#105

I collect swords, and this is a nice example. When researching swords from the medieval period I found this technique of starting with an octagonal "bar" of stock material and then using a hammer to shape the blade while leaving a round segment for the handle to be interesting. It makes sense of course, although it can make for an uncomfortable handle (hence the wrapped handles in more modern swords.)

The article mentions that the handles were often cast over the blade.

Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#106
post #42

It blows my mind that these godawful cookie banners is where we ended up. Web devs, you clowns need get your shit together. No, the law doesn't require you to do this. Go back to the drawing board and do better.

I'm a web dev and I've tried to tell most of my clients (in the US) that they don't even NEED a cookie banner, and moreover that if they do, then it needs to be compliant with the law otherwise its completely pointless and cumbersome. They don't care. They don't trust what I tell them because they see countless other websites doing it, including some bigger companies. Even when I provide links to official EU sites or to articles that explain everything quite clearly, they do not care. And I also think it is seen as a sign of legitimacy, like companies want to prove they are a serious company in their space and so they do the same things much larger companies do, without actually considering what the point is and definitely without asking any attorneys to weight in. I suppose I could flat out refuse to do something that is dumb and pointless, but I'd rather keep their business because it doesn't actually affect me much.

GDPR made a lot of headlines when it was announced and a lot of American companies confused that with the cookie requirements, because that is the time I started seeing a lot of American companies install them, including my own clients asking for them. Despite the cookie requirements being around long before that. It's quite clear that, without enforcement, nobody will ever take these things seriously. The best way to handle it would be something that requires browsers to implement and which cannot be skirted. Maybe we should do away with cookies altogether and come up with something else.

Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say much the same thing. A great book that gets into the details of this is https://www.amazon.com/Inheritance-Rome-Illuminating-Dark-40... TLDR; people considered themselves "Roman", or something adjacent to it, long after the western empire officially disintegrated, and of course in the east it didn't really die. Even on the outskirts (e.g. Romano-British) people held onto Roman, Christian, and Latin c…

> Even on the outskirts (e.g. Romano-British) people held onto Roman, Christian, and Latin culture at a very deep level. Three of the 10 most common languages on Earth boil down to "Latin with a bad accent".

Exactly, and the most popular religion in the world is basically cultural continuity with late western Roman culture and its largest most organized official form even uses the Latin language and maintains political institutions with continuous lineage back to Rome.

I don't think there's a real timeline where Europeans were wandering around the ruins of the suddenly collapsed empire wondering who these people were. They knew fully, but the economic and political (and physical! plague!) situation meant they were unable to reconstruct the Pax Romana.

But they certainly tried, even when they were former "outsiders" like the Franks (who, in the west half of their realm, even dropped their native tongue to speak a form of Latin!).

In fact I feel it's possible that actual "progress" wasn't possible in Europe until philosophical thought moved beyond late-Roman neo-Platonic & neo-Aristotelian boundaries, and into new radical enlightenment era concepts.

Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#109
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such myths are likely based on classical Rome rather than bronze age discoveries. For several centuries after the Western empire fell apart, Europeans lacked the capability to build settlements or structures anywhere close to the size typical of classical Roman civilization. Populations were depressed by pestilence, social order had declined, and most Europeans were within a short distance from a former Roman settlem…

My YouTube feed has been (pleasantly) taken over by ancient Rome videos where historians and archaeologists cover how various Roman inventions and buildings worked. I don't think people realize how far ahead of everyone else Rome was at that time. Like most people know that Rome had aqueducts bringing in water to the city, but they probably don't know that water was supplied to different buildings directly, and you c…

Sounds interesting. Do you have any channels or particular videos you'd recommend?

Re: Archaeologists find 3000-year-old sword, exceptionally well preserved

#110
post #13

More nice pictures here, very metal: https://www.welt.de/geschichte/article245860994/Archaeologie...

Wow! That really does look like it's in good shape. I understand it's because bronze doesn't oxidize as readily but it's not what I picture when someone says 3000 year old sword.

Same here. With something that old I was expecting "well preserved" to mean that I could probably make out that it has the shape of a sword.
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