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Why Writing? Ancient monuments and buildings tell us more than another creation myth.
by graphe 3y ago
Why Writing? Ancient monuments and buildings tell us more than another creation myth.
- s1artibartfast 3y agowriting can capture different information, and the fact that much of what we do have is religious is tied to the fact that writing was so rare! If you personally dont find the history of human belief interesting, think of something you might. What if you could read journals from explorers settling the pacific islands. What would a daily journal from a 20k BC Mesoamerican include? What did people think about sabertooth tigers,
- graphe 3y agoWithout translations it's not useful either. I'm not against writings but we can glean way more info from DNA and archeology than glyphs. Pictographs are useful but long dead writing methods aren't interesting unless we can understand them.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoObviously that depends on what you want to learn. DNA is not going to tell you the hopes, dreams, or thoughts of early peoples. I have zero care for information as a general concept. I care about specific types of information. The funny thing about translations are that if you have lots of texts, it makes them easier to translate