In Indonesia, humanity's oldest art is flaking away. Can scientists save it? • Hacker News Board

Re: In Indonesia, humanity's oldest art is flaking away. Can scientists save it?

#21

Post by poulpy123 » Fri, Dec 15, 2023, 11:22 AM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #10

m_t wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of Lascaux I believe.

Kinda, the damage never happened to Chauvet because the preservators learned from Lascaux and Altamira: they did not open Chauvet to the public at all. They did eventually open a huge replica cave which you can visit, the Caverne du Pont-d'Arc aka Chauvet 2.

and it's very nice to visit! Not too far also (from an US point of view :D ) is the cave Chauvet. The original is 37m underwater, but a replica opened few month ago in nearby marseille

Re: In Indonesia, humanity's oldest art is flaking away. Can scientists save it?

#22

Post by krisoft » Fri, Dec 15, 2023, 11:22 AM UTC

iLoveOncall wrote: post #18

thfuran wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Photos only show what camera/film of the time could capture (in some lighting condition), not everything that every possible test could. Just how certain are you that there will never be a technique or technology discovered that would reveal information prior studies didn't?

I am not and you're probably right, but as I said what can we expect to learn from those paintings that will further human civilization? At some point the past has nothing to teach anymore.

> what can we expect to learn from those paintings that will further human civilization.

Perhaps not the painting. Perhaps we develop a technique which can learn from the dust on the ground, or the sediments accumulated in the cave.

It is a very small cost to keep the cave closed. And in the history of humankind we have multiple times destroyed stuff later generations could have learned from.

Just look up for example the history of the Herculaneum papyri[1] and all the attempts to unroll them with destructive methods. Many of those were destroyed forever without being read or only partially read. And it very much seems like we are on the precipice of having the tech to read them non-destructively.[2]

And if all you want is to ogle at the paintings then you can do that in the replica cave?

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculaneum_papyri 2: https://scrollprize.org/

Re: In Indonesia, humanity's oldest art is flaking away. Can scientists save it?

#23

Post by acadapter » Fri, Dec 15, 2023, 12:08 PM UTC

It will fade away, preserve the information instead.

Make good copies in enameled brass or bronze, inscribe some words about their context, and sell them as souvernirs or collector's items to people that are interested in these things.

Re: In Indonesia, humanity's oldest art is flaking away. Can scientists save it?

#24

Post by melkor73 » Fri, Dec 15, 2023, 2:05 PM UTC

iLoveOncall wrote: post #18

thfuran wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Photos only show what camera/film of the time could capture (in some lighting condition), not everything that every possible test could. Just how certain are you that there will never be a technique or technology discovered that would reveal information prior studies didn't?

I am not and you're probably right, but as I said what can we expect to learn from those paintings that will further human civilization? At some point the past has nothing to teach anymore.

Have you ever read "Collapse" by Jared Diamond? Understanding and learning from that past is literally crucial to the continued existence of the human race. More crucial than any technology anyone here has ever created.

The book directly pulls on the kind of data on early societies that the scientists studying these caves produce.

Re: In Indonesia, humanity's oldest art is flaking away. Can scientists save it?

#25

Post by CyberDildonics » Fri, Dec 15, 2023, 2:12 PM UTC

pif wrote: post #19

CyberDildonics wrote: post #15

It's talking about cave paintings, just in case you don't want to click on the clickbait.

Clickbait? What else did you expect to be "humanity's older art"? Some digital photo with less than 4 million pixels?

It could have been rock stacking, I don't know why you're being nasty about saving people from having to look at a clickbait story to confirm what a title is talking about.

Re: In Indonesia, humanity's oldest art is flaking away. Can scientists save it?

#26

Post by heroprotagonist » Fri, Dec 15, 2023, 4:18 PM UTC

pif wrote: post #19

CyberDildonics wrote: post #15

It's talking about cave paintings, just in case you don't want to click on the clickbait.

Clickbait? What else did you expect to be "humanity's older art"? Some digital photo with less than 4 million pixels?

At first I didn't think they meant it literally. I thought it was intended like 'craft'. Which is a lot like 'profession', so I was curious why humanity's oldest profession started flaking away..

Re: In Indonesia, humanity's oldest art is flaking away. Can scientists save it?

#27

Post by schwartzworld » Fri, Dec 15, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #17

schwartzworld wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that just understood? If I say my grandfather is my oldest relative, nobody is like "oldest LIVING relative"

> Isn't that just understood? If I say my grandfather is my oldest relative, nobody is like "oldest LIVING relative" You might think so, but no, very few people understand this. People are constantly being shocked when a technology that is obviously highly developed in one archaeological period turns out to have precursors in earlier periods. You might also compare the common claim that one human language is older or…

> the common claim that one human language is older or younger than another one

Why is this gibberish? Languages are pretty tied to time/place, and some are undoubtedly older than others?

Re: In Indonesia, humanity's oldest art is flaking away. Can scientists save it?

#28

Post by thaumasiotes » Sat, Dec 16, 2023, 5:52 AM UTC

schwartzworld wrote: post #27

thaumasiotes wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that just understood? If I say my grandfather is my oldest relative, nobody is like "oldest LIVING relative" You might think so, but no, very few people understand this. People are constantly being shocked when a technology that is obviously highly developed in one archaeological period turns out to have precursors in earlier periods. You might also compare the common claim that one human language is older or…

> the common claim that one human language is older or younger than another one Why is this gibberish? Languages are pretty tied to time/place, and some are undoubtedly older than others?

It's gibberish because the concept itself fails to make any sense. Think about it. How would it work?

You can say that Latin is younger than French. But you can't say that Sardinian is older than French or that Telugu is older than Hindi; those claims are incoherent.