4 ms·
Because of the stamps - they can relate them to texts to figure out when those administrations were in power.
by spinach 8y ago
Because of the stamps - they can relate them to texts to figure out when those administrations were in power.
- nonbel 8y agoRight, but since when are ancient texts reliable sources for historical dates?
- ajkjk 8y agoThey're as reliable as they are, and knowing how much that is is in the purview of an entire academic discipline.
- hannasanarion 8y ago... because they wrote down the dates? Calendars are not a recent invention. People have been dating texts for as long as there have been texts. Especially texts related to trade and accounting. If the pot says "made in the 4th year of king such-and-such", all you have to do is find out when that king took office, which is probably on a monument somewhere, if not in dozens of other texts, since a new administration is a pretty big deal that lots of people would write about.
- nonbel 8y agoDifferent civilizations had different calendars at different times, the calendar would often restart with each new king, some kings would be erased from history because they lost a war, etc. I doubt it is as easy as you say.
- eitland 8y agoEh, but some of the texts are pretty good at pointing out both useless as well as well liked rulers, and contains long lists of "Z, son of Y was king of X for K years, he did not fear $deity and was useless and died and his son was king after him", in between all the success stories. Correlating them to other historic texts, filling in the missing parts, removing thing one doesn't care about etc is the job for historians.
- nonbel 8y agoI don't understand the high regard historians are being held given here. It is like just because they have extremely messy/biased data to deal with their conclusions are held in an even higher regard than that of science.
- a-priori 8y agoThere's a whole discipline of experts who spend their whole lives studying this stuff. It's awful arrogant for an amateur to assume they're all full of shit.
- nonbel 8y agoJust because someone tries as hard as they can and does the best they can doesn't mean they are right. The available info may simply be flawed (GIGO).
- a-priori 8y agoYes but the best people to judge what's garbage and what's not are the experts. Look I'm done with this thread. I've made my point, and your comment history shows you only post this sort of pseudo-intellectual nonsense. You represent everything that's wrong with this site.
- nonbel 8y agoNah, I just have the proper skepticism. You know, the idea behind science: Nullius in verba
- hannasanarion 8y agoNo, that is not how skepticism works. There is a humongous body of knowledge on the topic, and all of it is very well supported with an abundance of of evidence. Being too lazy to visit a library and educate yourself on a topic is called "willful ignorance", not skepticism. "nullius in verba" means you don't accept theories on authority alone. It means that you don't formulate a conception of gravity by thinking about elements for a while and then declaring that you figured it out, as Aristotle did, but by considering testable possibilities and performing experiments, as Newton did. "nullius in verba" does NOT mean you can throw out all of Newton's work as "words words words" because you don't feel like reading it.
- BurningFrog 8y agoOne text is an anecdote. Thousands of independent texts weighed together form our understanding of history.
- kej 8y agoHistorians are usually pretty good at what they do, and aren't just taking ancient calendars at their word. On top of that, we also have astronomical records to serve as anchors for other dates. We can figure out when eclipses happened, when each planet was visible, and so on. If ancient texts record an eclipse during the reign of King Foo, and we know when there was an eclipse visible from that area, we can interpret any other events in Foo's time around those definite dates.