Under Notre Dame, a 'dig of the century' unearths 1,700 years of history
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Re: Under Notre Dame, a 'dig of the century' unearths 1,700 years of history
#2It's surprising that they're not doing that systematically around the building, but then again I guess that applies to a large part of the city as well.
One always wonders which incredible books we lost, from amazing mysterious old philosophers. The burning of the library of Alexandria is such an incredible sadness
Re: Under Notre Dame, a 'dig of the century' unearths 1,700 years of history
#3It's surprising that they're not doing that systematically around the building, but then again I guess that applies to a large part of the city as well. One always wonders which incredible books we lost, from amazing mysterious old philosophers. The burning of the library of Alexandria is such an incredible sadness
> One always wonders which incredible books we lost, from amazing mysterious old philosophers.
You might be interested in The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, a historical novel about such a lost work.
Re: Under Notre Dame, a 'dig of the century' unearths 1,700 years of history
#4[flagged]
Re: Under Notre Dame, a 'dig of the century' unearths 1,700 years of history
#5It's surprising that they're not doing that systematically around the building, but then again I guess that applies to a large part of the city as well. One always wonders which incredible books we lost, from amazing mysterious old philosophers. The burning of the library of Alexandria is such an incredible sadness
> It's surprising that they're not doing that systematically around the building, but then again I guess that applies to a large part of the city as well.
In some places in Italy, Greece, Malta, probably others I don't know, people always joke that you shouldn't try to ever do any renovations lest you end up finding something and lose your house. Some places you're almost guaranteed to find stuff if you just dig once or twice.
Re: Under Notre Dame, a 'dig of the century' unearths 1,700 years of history
#6It's surprising that they're not doing that systematically around the building, but then again I guess that applies to a large part of the city as well. One always wonders which incredible books we lost, from amazing mysterious old philosophers. The burning of the library of Alexandria is such an incredible sadness
By not excavating the whole city they leave work for future archaeologists. :)
Re: Under Notre Dame, a 'dig of the century' unearths 1,700 years of history
#7It's surprising that they're not doing that systematically around the building, but then again I guess that applies to a large part of the city as well. One always wonders which incredible books we lost, from amazing mysterious old philosophers. The burning of the library of Alexandria is such an incredible sadness
> It's surprising that they're not doing that systematically around the building
There's a very good reason for that: archaeological techniques improve all the time. The idea here is to leave something for future archaeologists.
Re: Under Notre Dame, a 'dig of the century' unearths 1,700 years of history
#8"Twenty centuries are stacked in 4 meters (13 feet) of earth — or about the height of two-and-a-half Napoleon Bonapartes standing on top of one another."
Way to get history wrong in your story about history.
Re: Under Notre Dame, a 'dig of the century' unearths 1,700 years of history
#9It's surprising that they're not doing that systematically around the building, but then again I guess that applies to a large part of the city as well. One always wonders which incredible books we lost, from amazing mysterious old philosophers. The burning of the library of Alexandria is such an incredible sadness
Excavation with our soon-to-be-outdated techniques is needless destruction.
We should only excavate what is about to be destroyed.
( And we shouldn't destroy stuff just to put up yet another shitty modern building. )
Re: Under Notre Dame, a 'dig of the century' unearths 1,700 years of history
#10The book Paris, 1200 is pretty good read for anyone interested in 'point in time' history:
> Paris in 1200 was a city in transition. The great cathedral of Notre Dame was halfway through its construction and walls were being built to enclose the new, larger limits of the city. Pope Innocent III ordered all French churches closed to punish King Philip Augustus for his remarriage; the king himself negotiated an unprecedented truce with the English; and the students of Paris threatened a general strike, punctuated with incidents of violence, to protest infringements of their rights. John W. Baldwin brilliantly resurrects this key moment in Parisian history using documents only from 1190 to 1210—a narrow focus made possible by the availability of collections of the Capetian monarchy and the medieval scholastic thinkers. This unique approach results in a vivid snapshot of the city at the turn of the thirteenth century. Paris, 1200 introduces the reader to the city itself and its inhabitants. Three "faces" exemplify these that of the celebrated scholar Pierre the Chanter, of King Philip Augustus, and of the more deeply hidden visages of women. The book examines the city's primary the royal government, the Church, and its celebrated schools that evolved into the university at Paris. Finally, it offers an account of the delights and pleasures, as well as the fears and sorrows, of Parisian life in this period.