5 ms·
Personally I have felt that the fascination of Western archaeologists with Roman History is explained by the necessity of the American "aristocracy" to establis
by nafey 8y ago
Personally I have felt that the fascination of Western archaeologists with Roman History is explained by the necessity of the American "aristocracy" to establish a cultural heritage of exceptionalism. This has led to an extremely detailed view of Roman History.
The history of other regions and civilisations serve no such similar purpose and have been ignored.
- sumedh 8y ago> The history of other regions and civilisations serve no such similar purpose and have been ignored. Before pointing fingers at the West, does Iran take an extremely detailed view of its Persian History, that would not go well with Islamic Iran.
- nafey 8y agoI fail to see the relevance of Iran's example although drawing moral equivalence with a country which has often been decried to belong to "axis of evil" seems counter productive
- sumedh 8y ago> I fail to see the relevance of Iran's example If a country wont look at its history why do expect others to look at that country's history?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- nafey 8y agoMaybe in case of Iran due to Islamic fundamentalism people are unwilling to look far back into the history, but the history of India, China, Central Asia, Russia etc. remain woefully unexplored as compared to Roman history.
- sumedh 8y agoAll the countries you mentioned are developing, they have better things to do than explore their history although I agree they should do a bit more.
- pyrale 8y agoChina and "India" are pretty well documented. Russia, not sure what you refer to here, but few written documents and sparsely populated areas explain the lack of historic research much better than american intent. As for central asia, which civilization are you talking about ?
- megaman22 8y agoCentral asia was pretty developed and civilized, when the Silk Road was the central artery of global east-west trade. And before Genghis flattened the Khwarezmians.
- barry-cotter 8y agoIranians are well aware of the length and depth of their history. They’re also very proud of their literary and especially their poetic tradition. The high culture of the Mslim world was Persian speaking for an extremely long time. Urdu, the Muslim register of Hindustani takes its scientific, governmental and administrative vocabulary from Persian. Ottoman “Turkish” is unintelligible to speakers of modern Turkish because of the massive amount of Persian and Arabic vocabulary that was removed under the Young Turks’ language reforms. The language of high culture from Delhi to Baghdad to Konstantiniyye (Constantinople) was Persian. Persian was at least as much the language of the Islamic Golden Age as Arabic.
- oh_sigh 8y agoAre Americans allowed into Iran to do historical research? I know it is only possible to visit as a private citizen with some very restrictive rules(ie have a hired baby-sitter the entire time).
- pvaldes 8y ago"Axis of devil" is just a marketing term in any case.
- barking 8y agoI don't understand how the study of Roman History as opposed to any other Empire's History would make America feel more exceptional.
- simion314 8y agoRomans left a lot of writings so you get a detailed history of some periods where other population like the Dacian that did not have writing we get just a few details about them and some of those details are from Roman or Greek writings.
- Amezarak 8y agoYes, this is exactly it. We have tons and tons and tons of documents from ancient Greece and Rome. On the other hand, we have much more writings on Persia written by Greeks and Romans than we do on Persians written by Persians: most of our knowledge of ancient Persia is via the Greeks and Romans! The sad reality of history is that having contemporaneous writings by the people involved adds a lot more color and detail to history than archeology, so people are naturally more interested - there's more that can be known!
- pyrale 8y agoInterest in roman history predates the US by a couple cennturies... I doubt there is much exceptionnalism here besides trying to explain everything with US motives.
- olavk 8y agoInterest in Roman history was never lost. Access to Greek writings was lost to some extent in western Europe in medieval times, but even then it was known through Roman sources and retellings.
- pjc50 8y agoSee Said's argument about "Orientalism".
- skissane 8y ago> the fascination of Western archaeologists with Roman History is explained by the necessity of the American "aristocracy" to establish a cultural heritage of exceptionalism That seems a very US-centric viewpoint. Plenty of Western archaeologists aren't Americans. For many European countries, the Roman Empire is an important chapter of their own history, so it is unsurprising that archaeologists in those countries would be interested in it-and their interest has nothing to do with the United States. (Even many of those parts of Europe which never were subject to Roman rule were nonetheless enormously influenced by Roman culture, through the spread of Christianity.)
- olavk 8y agoThis is not something particular to America. Europeans have always stressed the continuity from antiquity. The pope uses the title "Pontifex Maximus" which was one held by Ceasar. Emperors (like the Holy Roman Emperor and the Zar) claimed to be the legitimate emperor of Rome. The Enlightenment thinkers were also heavily inspired by Rome and Greece, although preferred republican Rome to the time of the emperors. The reason we know so much about Rome and Greece is that we have a lot of written material - histories, literature, poetry, letters, laws etc. Archeology is a relatively new science, while history (the study of written accounts) have existed since antiquity. History is not just a question of what happened, but also about the effect of what happened. For example the Egyptian or Sumerian literature and philosophy might be just as magnificent as the Roman, but since those languages were lost it simply did not have the same effect on subsequent culture as Rome had.
- ghein 8y agoThe Romans were claiming a link to the Trojan war in their origin myths! Prominent Romans would "discover" an ancestral link to a named hero... While the Japanese Royal Family claimed descent from a God.
- olavk 8y agoAnd not only Romans! According to the Icelandic historian Snorre Sturlason, Thor and Odin (the Norse gods) were actually Trojans nobles which ended up in Scandinavia, and the Danish royal family descends from them. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, the first settler in England was a descendant of Aeneas, the Trojan prince which founded Rome. And of course, the Trojan royal family ultimately descends from the Gods, and the mother of Aeneas was Venus. In other words, the Danish royal lineage descends from both Norse and Greek gods.