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Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

smithsonianmag.com

41–50 of 123 posts

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you okay? They were teenagers. We were all there and we all tried. The logistics of having 7 billion people quarantine while international flights and asymptomatic carriers carried on made it _impossible_ to not play out like it did

~5 years above two comments would have had totally flipped karma/flagging

In January 2021, the date from the article, it was a totally different scenario from early in the pandemic in Northern Italy. Calling these students murderers is a little histrionic at best.

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparatively few historical ruins built out of materials that would have lasted this long, but a long history, actually, and some you can still see... Mexico City is a quick plane ride from the USA, and while some of their ruins are buried, you can hop a short bus ride outside the city to walk among standing ruins of Teotihuacan, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere at the time Jesus walked on the Earth. It wa…

Nitpick but we do know who built Teotihuacan -- it was the Teotihuacanos! Unfortunately it's true that we know relatively little about them.

We know who robbed the bank, it was clearly the bank robbers!

Archeology is my fav.

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#43
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? My history class taught me that before the Europeans arrived there were only the native americans, so nothing of historical value.

The adobe structures of the American southwest, and mounds in many other areas survived, but for the most part there was not much left of historical value in terms of ruins of structures of the native americans. Europeans more often build with stones, rock, brick, etc and more regularly other more survivable building materials.

Europeans are the descendants of the third little pig?

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~5 years above two comments would have had totally flipped karma/flagging

In January 2021, the date from the article, it was a totally different scenario from early in the pandemic in Northern Italy. Calling these students murderers is a little histrionic at best.

[dead]

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparatively few historical ruins built out of materials that would have lasted this long, but a long history, actually, and some you can still see... Mexico City is a quick plane ride from the USA, and while some of their ruins are buried, you can hop a short bus ride outside the city to walk among standing ruins of Teotihuacan, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere at the time Jesus walked on the Earth. It wa…

Nitpick but we do know who built Teotihuacan -- it was the Teotihuacanos! Unfortunately it's true that we know relatively little about them.

It was a carefully planned large city with the road along the main axis pointed at 15 degrees east of north, and the large pyramids were integrated into the city's design, but we definitely don't know who did that planning. Hundreds of apartment compounds were standardized. Tens of cubic meters of earth were moved and they had to quarry lots of basalt and other stone.

There is strong evidence it was a multi-ethnic city, especially since there are distinct ethnic neighborhoods based on artifacts such as pottery. No trace of writing or how the city and government were organized, and whether a ruling elite called the shots or if there were ruling families from different ethnic groups working together.

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you okay? They were teenagers. We were all there and we all tried. The logistics of having 7 billion people quarantine while international flights and asymptomatic carriers carried on made it _impossible_ to not play out like it did

[flagged]

This is obviously you on another account. What are you trying to accomplish?

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in Pompeii just 2 weeks ago, the thing that absolutely blew my mind was that there is a section where archeologists are working _right now_ still uncovering more buildings, and you can see them exactly as they are coming out of the ground - I think with the rest of the ruins I've had this feeling that you know, it got somehow cleaned up and repaired a bit for tourists, but nope, you can see in that section of a…

The crazy thing is that Pompeii's art was so well preserved by the ash but now it is exposed to the elements and will degrade.

There's almost no original art in Pompeii, it's all in the archeological museum in Naples. There are some reproductions in place in Pompeii, but mostly it's bare brick walls that the art has been scraped from. You need to see the brick walls, then see the art in the museum, then compose the two in your head.

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#49
post #9
post #8

> To William’s complete lack of surprise, the little cellar under the shed was much better built than the shed itself. But then, practically everywhere in Ankh-Morpork had cellars that were once the first or even second or third floors of ancient buildings, built at the time of one of the city’s empires when men thought that the future was going to last for ever. And then the river had flooded and brought mud with it…

For a modern example, see the Raising of Chicago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago . I think I've seen an image of what the old ground level looks like now, and / or that you can take tours there. There's probably loads of stuff buried there now. Edit: Actually it was Seattle, you can still visit its old ground level: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground

My understanding of the Chicago case is that most of what the old "ground level" was is just sewers today. I heard some of it was railroad tracks and maybe some are still used for cargo-only trains, but most of Chicago wasn't really raised a full "floor" with enough headroom for interesting underground spaces.

A US city often overlooked for some intricate people explorable underground spaces is Cincinnati: https://www.visitcincy.com/blog/post/unmistakably-cincinnati...

Some of Cincinnati's underground exists from plans to build subway trains that never completed. I think that makes Cincinnati's particularly sad being that it constitutes a perpetually unfinished public works/public transportation project.

Relatedly to that, Atlanta also has a tiny underground leftover from passenger train lines that ended passenger travel decades ago (and so was turned into a mall, because America): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Atlanta

Re: Teenagers Stayed Overnight at Their School and Found Hidden Ancient Roman Ruins

#50
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crazy thing is that Pompeii's art was so well preserved by the ash but now it is exposed to the elements and will degrade.

There's almost no original art in Pompeii, it's all in the archeological museum in Naples. There are some reproductions in place in Pompeii, but mostly it's bare brick walls that the art has been scraped from. You need to see the brick walls, then see the art in the museum, then compose the two in your head.

Yes, it will still degrade in the museum, is all I mean.
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