8 ms·
You can’t discuss kings without discussing the rich history of Europe with thousands of years of oral and written history long predating the Sumerians and even
by SurviveTheJive 1mo ago
You can’t discuss kings without discussing the rich history of Europe with thousands of years of oral and written history long predating the Sumerians and even the ancient Proto Indo-European peoples to which European language and culture is often erroneously attributed.
The dark ages were anything but dark.
Ancient Europe was anything but primitive.
And yet it’s so rarely discussed in the mainstream.
- pavel_lishin 1mo agoCan you give us a few pointers or links?
- dismalaf 1mo agoNot the OP but there's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin%C4%8Da_symbols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin%C4%8Da_symbols Some people also interpret some symbols on mammoth tusks going back 50k years as writing but that's a stretch IMO.
- stodor89 1mo agoInterpreting Vinca symbols as a full-blown writing system is also widely considered a stretch.
- dismalaf 1mo agoAre you talking alphabet or just writing system? It's clear by the number of symbols it's a writing system of sorts (proto-writing). It could definitely be pictograms (probably IMO), but then again, cuneiform, hieroglyphics and Chinese writing all started as pictograms as well.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- jfengel 1mo agoThe "dark ages" were also thousands of years after the Sumerians. Even the Greek Dark Age postdates Sumer by a millennium. So you're not really filling me with confidence about your idea here. Perhaps you can provide some sort of evidence?
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- mcphage 1mo ago> and even the ancient Proto Indo-European peoples to which European language … is often erroneously attributed Would you mind being a little clearer about what it is you’re saying here?
- dgellow 1mo ago> The dark ages were anything but dark The period is only called dark age in English for what it’s worth, that should make it pretty obvious it’s not a universal understanding of that era
- gverrilla 1mo agoAFAIK it's called Middle Ages. "Dark ages" is a nickname, it exists in Portuguese too, at least, and yes it reflects obsolete notions about that moment in history.
- mapontosevenths 1mo agoIt deserves to be called that. After the fall of the Roman empire primitive religion came to rule Europe. The science the Greeks gave Europe were lost or stagnated, and literacy was almost exclusively the domain of the church. Europe regressed, while the Islamic world preserved the Greek science texts and China thrived (inventing gunpowder and money to start with). Everything is named by comparison, and we compare that age to the age of enlightenment. I don't care how unpopular it is to say it out loud, it's the literal, provable, and easily verified truth that Europe during that time was an age of intellectual darkness.
- IAmBroom 1mo ago> After the fall of the Roman empire primitive religion came to rule Europe. I get that you want to bash Christianity, but... it's not like it was less progressive than worshipping force-of-nature gods with a propensity for rape and petty revenge.
- mapontosevenths 1mo ago> I get that you want to bash Christianity Not at all. The dark ages were dark. Pretending like they weren't because of your religious choices is just intellectually dishonest, regardless of your faith. Were they dark because religion was in charge? Yes. Atheists have perpetrated their fair share of horrors (and then some) as well. So have most/many other religions. Using weak language to avoid having to consider the horrors of the past helps no-one except those who wish to repeat those horrors. My objection is not to Christianity, it is to revisionists who want to pretend like Christianity didn't already have a go at being in charge or forget the monstrosity of what happened when it was.