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Discovery of bronzes rewrites Italy's Etruscan-Roman history
- tomcam 4y agoFor once, no hype in the title. The find is thrilling. A large number of intact or merely intact statues discovered this late. Etruscan art is way underrated.
- Bayart 4y agoI find the implication that a single find can "rewrite history" to be very much hype.
- thaumasiotes 4y agoA single find could easily rewrite history. But this isn't the royal library of Ashurbanipal (wikipedia: "the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal is a collection of more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds from the 7th century BC"). [And it's not just a fancy name - this was actually a royal library which was the beneficiary of a lot of royal effort to collect all kinds of significant texts.] This is a bunch of statues and votive offerings of models of body parts. There is apparently no text, and if there were text we probably couldn't read it. This find has no hope of rewriting history.
- andreasley 4y agoFrom the article: "The statues [...] bear both Etruscan and Latin inscriptions."
- thaumasiotes 4y agoFair enough. How many of them say something more than "Mallius d."?
- posterboy 4y ago> There is apparently no text I have hoped that "rewrites history" would be more literal. There are however traces in the material composition that could be as good as a way description.
- posterboy 4y ago> There is apparently no text I actually have hoped that "rewrites history" would be more literal. There are however traces in the material composition that could be as good as a fingerprint.
- tomcam 4y agoI believe it’s literally true in this case. There just isn’t much Etruscan art known compared to Roman art
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- lm28469 4y agoIt happens all the time afaik, for some eras/civilisations artefacts are so rare and far apart that sometimes all it takes is a random skull / art piece / tool to completely break past assumptions. Watching history documentaries make people think we have a pretty good idea of all the events and their respective timelines but for the vast majority of history we have absolutely no fucking idea what was going on Things like that for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schöningen_spears https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schöningen_spears > The spears and the place of discovery revolutionized the picture of the cultural and social development of early humans. Previously, Middle Pleistocene hominins, whether Homo heidelbergensis or early Neanderthals, were regarded as simple beings without language who acquired meat by scavenging other carnivore kills or natural deaths. The spears and their correlated finds are evidence of complex technological skills and are the first direct evidence that these humans hunted their prey. The large and swift prey that the Schöningen humans butchered suggests that their technologies and hunting strategies were sophisticated, that they had complex social structures, and had developed some form of communication (language ability). The Schöningen humans therefore likely had cognitive skills such as anticipatory planning, thinking, and acting, some of which had only previously been attributed to modern humans.[46][47] In addition, the spears have played a major role in debates about the origins of throwing.
- posterboy 4y agoSo, which yesteryear assumptions are broken?
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- napolux 4y agoThis discovery is comparable to the Riace bronzes one according to authorities. Soon a museum will be open in San Casciano, keep it in your todo list if you’re planning a trip to Italy in the close future Look for images of these new discoveries, they’re still intact after 2300 years Some more pics here https://www.ilpost.it/2022/11/08/bronzi-san-casciano/san-casciano-come-riace-dallacqua-24-statue-di-bronzo/ https://www.ilpost.it/2022/11/08/bronzi-san-casciano/san-cas... (in Italian, use arrow keys or yellow buttons to navigate the gallery)
- boppo1 4y agoI don't have an ad-blocker and the ad keeps popping up, rendering the site unusable. On chrome mobile, I close the ad then pinch zoom for a better look and the ad pops back up.
- silvanocerza 4y agoThe place is San Casciano dei Bagni[1], not San Casciano. They're different places, the first is close to Siena, the second is near Pisa. Don't get confused, there are several different San Casciano. There's also San Casciano in Val di Pesa[2] near Florence. If you go there I also suggest going to Radicofani[3], it should be around 20 minutes from there by car. The place is not easy to reach by public transport, I suggest taking a car. It's worth it though. :) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Casciano_dei_Bagni https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Casciano_dei_Bagni [2]: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Casciano_in_Val_di_Pesa https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Casciano_in_Val_di_Pesa [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radicofani https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radicofani
- tecleandor 4y agoL'Umbria is one of my (multiple) pending places to visit in Italy, and that's right in the border. I'll write that down just in case :)
- thom 4y agoPretty exciting week for archaeology as a whole: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/11/08/cleopatras-tomb-could-mysterious-tunnel-says-archaeologist/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/11/08/cleopatras...
- Luc 4y agoAn amateur archeologist getting permission to dig from Egyptian authorities, that's remarkable isn't it (if true)?
- ycombinete 4y agoIn Egypt anything is possible if you know the right people, and give them enough money.
- beermonster 4y agohttps://archive.ph/FeAOl https://archive.ph/FeAOl
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- prox 4y agoI like how to art styles seems to be a bit more rough, more provincial. These are not made by the top artists of Greece or Rome. A wonderful find indeed! This also brings to life the stories in Livy’s Book “Ab Urba Condita”
- toyg 4y agoThere are, reportedly, over 24 statues. They all need to be cleaned properly before we can really get an idea of their value. Rich people likely went to get healed too, and "the gods" liked art quality as much as anyone else, so there is a pretty decent chance at least a few of these will be of excellent quality.
- prox 4y agoYeah exciting time! Can’t wait to see them clean!
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- darkwater 4y agoI imagine being an archaeologist and spend months/years digging and digging and digging and not finding anything relevant and then you find something like this. The emotions, the feeling of achievement, the joy, must be something not easy to find in any other profession.
- bluepizza 4y agoAnd imagine the next day, when you are back to square zero.
- toyg 4y agoA find like this will not leave you back to zero - you'll run conferences on the find alone for decades, and then there is all the work to examine and exhibit the findings. These events can be life-changing.
- toyg 4y agoThis is "winning the World Cup" / "getting the Nobel/Oscar" tier of happiness - something that the 0.0001% of the profession will ever experience, but that powers the dreams (and hence, the actions) of everyone in the field.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoAre anatomically accurate sculptures of human organs evidence for human sacrifice? Apparently there are some ancient documents which attest to Etruscan human sacrifice (writings of Callimachus particularly), but modern scholars debate it. If the bronze organs they found here really are anatomically accurate, that seems likely evidence of human sacrifice to me. Or at least, the artists were witness to some cadaver dissections.
- toyg 4y agoThis site started under Etruscans but went on to be used all the way to Roman adoption of Christianity. It's much, much more likely that these organs were used for anatomical/medicine studies by resident healers.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoI have read that Greek physicians practiced human dissection, but that this practice was banned by Rome. Perhaps the Etruscans practiced it, or Roman physicians did despite the bans, or during periods when it wasn't banned. FWIW, the article claims the bronze organs were used as votive offerings. This seems like the sort of practice that may have evolved as a replacement to earlier human sacrifice, with real organs being removed and used as offerings, which would give those people the experience needed to create anatomically accurate sculptures of human organs.
- carapace 4y agoNot to be gruesome but these folks were constantly chopping each other up with sharp bits of metal. It was the major hobby and profession of much of the adult male population, eh?
- MichaelCollins 4y agoI don't think many soldiers are anatomy experts. Chopping somebody up in combat is different than taking a body apart piece by piece and studying the way the organs are. Accurate knowledge of human anatomy in the modern era can be credited to the sometimes clandestine dissection of cadavers by doctors and other medical researchers, not the armies who merely chopped people up.
- Ancapistani 4y agoOddly, I first learned of this on TikTok, a full day before it was featured here.
- csdvrx 4y agoThat may not fly on HN. You didn't get the memo that TikTok is evil and everything made in China is bad? (with the possible exception of RISC CPUs, because reasons?)
- gumby 4y agoI love discoveries that shed light on the mysterious Etruscans. One of my favourite latin words, "uxor", is an Etruscan fossil.