Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Iliad fragment found in Roman-era mummy

thehistoryblog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 274 posts

Re: Iliad fragment found in Roman-era mummy

#211

Post by anang »

stavros wrote: post #205
anang wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've already accepted a lot of non-Greek casting, and always have. Movies like Troy are filled with people of German, English, Scandinavian whatever heritage, same here with The Odyssey. I think they get a pass because we see Greek history as a shared western history, even though it's about as accurate as a black person in those roles. So I think for a lot of people, when they see complaints about black actors playi…

I don't know about what Americans think, but, as a Greek, the whole "whiteness" thing is an American social construct. There aren't whites and blacks in Greece, mostly because we don't have enough black people here to have a divide. As far as I'm concerned, all your casting is wrong, it's not like Brad Pitt in Troy looks anything like a Greek person. Casting black people goes even farther, but it's just a matter of d…

Yes, people that get upset about racially “incorrect” casting hand wave away casting someone of Irish decent as Greek because it falls into some sort of western bucket.

So when someone complains about a black person being cast as Greek, in a movie filled with people of English, Irish, Scandinavian and who knows else decent, what they’re actually saying is that black people will never have a right to the shared western culture.

Re: Iliad fragment found in Roman-era mummy

#212

Post by Razengan »

zikduruqe wrote: post #208
Razengan wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But 2500+ years of ancient egypt is a very long damn time. To put that in perspective, consider how long 100 years ago feels.. not in technological terms, but in human perception of time: The USA was founded 250~ years ago. Try to recall your own life from 20, 40, 50 years ago.. it's a literal lifetime. Most people only meet people as far back as their grandparents, just 2 generations back. Great-grandparents and t…

> To put that in perspective Star Wars debuted 37 years after World War II Star Wars debuted 49 years from now (Now I feel really old)

The iPhone launched 7 years after 2000

The iPhone launched 19 years from now

Re: Iliad fragment found in Roman-era mummy

#213

Post by Razengan »

Razengan wrote: post #191
vkazanov wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people kind of merge the kingdoms together, while every kingdom is unique in both the culture and, say, external influence. And the late period is quite long as well. There is a very strong connection between periods, of course. But 2500+ years of ancient egypt is a very long damn time. All of our modern history is, say, 3k years, starting with greeks, early chinese , india and all. But egypt to me is like a sta…

> But 2500+ years of ancient egypt is a very long damn time. To put that in perspective, consider how long 100 years ago feels.. not in technological terms, but in human perception of time: The USA was founded 250~ years ago. Try to recall your own life from 20, 40, 50 years ago.. it's a literal lifetime. Most people only meet people as far back as their grandparents, just 2 generations back. Great-grandparents and t…

Sorry I meant "to people from 4000 years before us" because BC is negative years lol

Re: Iliad fragment found in Roman-era mummy

#214

Post by ourmandave »

protocolture wrote: post #116
zulux wrote: post #102

>>If Christopher Nolan’s coming adaptation of the Odyssey happens to do well enough to get Hollywood back on its feet, A typical laconic reply works here: "If"

It looks pretty shonky. I dont care about the casting. But the costumes look like ass (One of the extras was saying he had fit into the same armor for a low budget sword and sandal film), they are using a viking longboat as a greek ship (have already seen half a dozen experts spitting chips over the difference in boat design). I just cant bring myself to care about the film. "Oh its a fantasy film" its set in a histo…

Would you watch a 1965 WW2 "historical" movie if the Nazis were driving M47 Patton tanks?

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/the-battle-of-...

Re: Iliad fragment found in Roman-era mummy

#215

Post by joshuahedlund »

protocolture wrote: post #116
zulux wrote: post #102

>>If Christopher Nolan’s coming adaptation of the Odyssey happens to do well enough to get Hollywood back on its feet, A typical laconic reply works here: "If"

It looks pretty shonky. I dont care about the casting. But the costumes look like ass (One of the extras was saying he had fit into the same armor for a low budget sword and sandal film), they are using a viking longboat as a greek ship (have already seen half a dozen experts spitting chips over the difference in boat design). I just cant bring myself to care about the film. "Oh its a fantasy film" its set in a histo…

For someone who purports not to care about the film, you seem very familiar with the discourse about it. (I have seen zero experts, or anyone really, discussing boat design.)

Re: Iliad fragment found in Roman-era mummy

#216

Post by bazoom42 »

throwfaraway135 wrote: post #190
xdennis wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

One thing that always rubs me the wrong way in this type of situations, is how patronizing it is towards black people. It got the "let little timmy play too" vibe all over it. It hints that there are no interesting historical events with black people having a major role in it that you would want to create a movie about.

Is it also patronizing towards Americans to have Brad Pitt play Achilles?

Re: Iliad fragment found in Roman-era mummy

#217

Post by justanotherjoe »

adrianwaj wrote: post #151

The article sounds convincing enough, but discoveries can easily be faked, just like crop circles can be made by farmers using rake-like devices. Luxor and Las Vegas = same thing. Not trolling, but it's worth keeping this notion in mind. It's great for tourism and building mystique. At least when there is fakery, it's makes the real thing all the more valuable. Fakery sells movie tickets - it can sell plane tickets t…

You find it hard to believe...that Iliad was big? that 400 AD Egyptian medical practices involved quackeries?

Re: Iliad fragment found in Roman-era mummy

#218

Post by kombookcha »

lubujackson wrote: post #143
romanhn wrote: post #114

> the fragment contains lines from Book 2’s epic “catalogue of ships,” which lists all the vessels the Achaean army sends off to Troy It's been about 30 years since I've read The Iliad, but I remember that chapter as the worst part of the book. Just pages upon pages of names and where they came from. I wonder what significance it held for the buried individual to have been specifically included so.

This is an old technique that appears in Beowulf and other classic texts that came from oral traditions: it is cataloging. It is often used to list treasured collected or in this case to show expansiveness of the fleet (and memory of the teller, perhaps?) Think about 10 year olds talking about all the different candies they are going to devour on Halloween night to get a sense of how it is meant to resonate with a cr…

If the only way you could hear about Napoleon's battles was having a guy recount them to you in verse, I bet it would sound pretty impressive when he started listing off all the regiments present for a battle, their commanders and deployments. There's a sense of scale to it, that probably isn't captured by just saying "such and such number of ships and such and such number of soldiers".
Post reply on HN