[HN Gopher] Iberian Citadel of Calafell, Iron Age Village
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Iberian Citadel of Calafell, Iron Age Village
Author : CapitalistCartr
Score : 99 points
Date : 2021-03-18 14:16 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| sillyquiet wrote:
| Not saying this article qualifies, but I hope everybody keeps in
| mind that pop sci reporting on pre-historic finds and archaeology
| is particularly bad in a lot of cases. We attach a lot of
| romanticism and supposition to scant data about our forbears, and
| that's reflected in the reporting.
| finiteseries wrote:
| Luckily the research papers behind the articles are always very
| readable--especially in archaeology--and very easily accessed
| through libgen or email.
|
| Researchers also use Twitter more and more, it's not difficult
| to just skip the reporting entirely for the source in some
| areas!
| silentsea90 wrote:
| For folks who wonder how life would have been in those times, or
| just romanticize transporting to some time in history, I would
| highly recommend The Source by James A Michener. It covers
| thousands of years through multiple fictional stories across time
| but located in a fictitious town in Israel. There's "paganism",
| fun engineering challenges solved, the crusades, rise of islam,
| famine, plagues etc. Highly rated book that I love.
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12657.The_Source
| eunoia wrote:
| Just want to jump in and show some appreciation for Michener's
| historical fictions. The Source is great, and Hawaii is one of
| my all time favorite books.
| BBergdahl wrote:
| Visited this one in Sweden last summer:
| https://www.eketorpsborg.se/eketorp-fort/ Not everything was
| available/open due to Covid-19. But very interesting place from
| early Scandinavian iron age. (300 AD).
| pigscantfly wrote:
| Another fun one is Jamtli [1] (Jamtlands lans folkhistoriska
| museet) in Ostersund, which holds a museum and about ten acres
| of grounds with historical reconstructions of Swedish homes,
| farms, and businesses from roughly the 18th c. to the present
| day. Since 1986, actors have moved into the historical
| buildings every summer and recreated how people lived, worked
| and spoke in the past. [2] It's similar to colonial
| Williamsburg in the US but not focused on one particular point
| in time -- great fun!
|
| 1. https://jamtli.com 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamtli
| Arrath wrote:
| Another really neat one is Otzi-Dorf[1] in Austria, a
| recreation of an ancient village modeled after the items and
| equipment found on the body of Otzi the Iceman. Very cool to
| walk around.
|
| [1]https://www.oetzi-dorf.at/gb/
| diego_moita wrote:
| Worth mentioning the obvious: Herculaneum is a tiny village close
| to Naples buried by the same Vesuvius eruption that destroyed
| Pompei.
|
| What makes it interesting is that it is much better preserved
| than Pompei (although it is smaller).
|
| Fun fact: a big part of the restoration funding in Herculaneum
| came from David Packard, the "P" in HP computers.
| Isamu wrote:
| > Experience this Iron Age village the way that its original
| residents would have.
|
| Wow, I would hate the dirty clothes, bad health care and being
| away from my phone.
|
| But seriously, I really enjoy these historical re-creations,
| maybe I am in a minority.
| bumbada wrote:
| But you would love having lots of children to play with,
| everybody is young, lots of food in front of the Mediterranean
| sea when it was not polluted nor crowded.
|
| As an adult you would have lots of sex and live would be an
| adventure every day.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| how/why lots of sex?
| selestify wrote:
| I doubt the adventure part. Couldn't travel very far back in
| those days. Also most definitely a decent amount of old
| people.
| jamses wrote:
| Not quickly by land, but you could travel far enough by
| sea.
| ip26 wrote:
| History never felt more alive than when I was walking through
| the USS Bowfin.
| duxup wrote:
| I always like some good full restorations / recreations.
| Traveling in Europe right or wrong I got the impression that
| there were few of those than in the US (but that might just be
| anecdotal random chance).
|
| Granted, I did enjoy going to a concert at the theater at
| Orange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Theatre_of_Orange
| narag wrote:
| Sometimes you don't need much restoration at all:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqueduct_of_Segovia
|
| Edit: or this one:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Escorial
|
| but certainly I would love some furniture was added to some:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra
| arethuza wrote:
| Skara Brae, which is 5000 years old, does have buildings and
| even furniture in a remarkable state of preservation:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skara_Brae
| jankeymeulen wrote:
| I've visited it and found it very worthwhile, but one needs
| to remember that at the same time they were building the
| pyramids in Egypt.
| arethuza wrote:
| Different kinds of buildings though - I've been into one
| of the pyramids at Ghiza (Khafre's) and it actually
| doesn't look _that_ interesting. I find the buildings at
| Skara Brae interesting because they are more human scale
| (beds and other furniture) and were where people actually
| lived for many hundreds of years - quite a bit _before_
| the pyramids at Giza at least.
| duxup wrote:
| I don't think you really need to compare / remember
| that... we're talking history here, not some sort of
| building scorecard.
| Qworg wrote:
| Skara Brae was occupied as early as 3180 BC. Egyptians
| didn't finish the first pyramids until ~2600 BC.
|
| It is truly a wonder - especially given the different
| circumstances than a fertile river valley.
| brudgers wrote:
| Of course 2600 BCE is about half way between the early
| Pre-dynastic period and the end of the Ptolemeic period.
| And only about a third of the way to present day.
|
| Egypt is mind bogglingly long lived.
| fauria wrote:
| The Roman Theatre of Merida (15 BC) is another example, where
| an annual classic festival has been held since 1933:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Theatre_(M%C3%A9rida)
| avz wrote:
| Perhaps I can share a different perspective. I like
| unrestored ruins. I perceive a restoration as admixture of
| modern techniques and fresh touch onto an old and genuine
| core, and a recreation as a modern construction made to look
| old. When I explore those without having noticed or been
| forewarned about their true origins I feel cheated. When I do
| notice or someone tells me they really are new, I still feel
| they are inauthentic.
|
| I suppose I expect to see not just how people lived in the
| past, but also to see the effect that time has had on what
| they made. I like looking at a fragment of a wall and
| contemplate the amount of time that separates me from the
| folks who put it up. Knowledge that the wall was built in my
| lifetime just completely ruins it for me (no pun intended).
|
| That said, I did see some great recreations and I learnt much
| more about the past from them than I had from ruins. Some
| folks do impressive amount of research about what life used
| to be like and recreations are probably the best way for them
| to share what they learnt.
| [deleted]
| goda90 wrote:
| > Red lines can be seen painted on the walls in the reconstructed
| village: These lines mark the line between the original ancient
| structures and the parts that have been rebuilt.
|
| The red lines are pretty low on some of those tall walls. How do
| they know how high to reconstruct the wall? An educated guess, or
| is there some other evidence to point to how tall they were?
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I don't have knowledge of this particular reconstruction, but
| it depends. Stone walls can often be reconstructed directly by
| taking a designated section of rubble and rebuilding the wall
| to see how high it is. Some walls in the original site may also
| have retained their original height depending on construction,
| environment, materials, etc. Everything else is about
| constraining the range of possibilities based on evidence. It
| takes a certain base width to support x height in the local
| soil, the wall had some human purpose and probably wasn't
| overly tall for that (height = $$$), etc.
|
| All of this is to say that reconstructions are largely a series
| of educated guesses in most cases. That's generally fine as the
| goal isn't to be perfectly accurate, but instead to give
| tourists an engaging historical experience.
| rmah wrote:
| How can it be experienced authentically without the stink of
| human and animal waste flowing in the streets? Without the dread
| of disease hanging in the air. Without the threat of attack by
| the "foreigners" in the next valley.
| kiliancs wrote:
| I lived near Calafell for many years. I visited this site a few
| times, including once as part of a school trip. It does a good
| job at making what you have read in a textbook come to life, even
| for an area where ancient ruins are common. The article mentions
| Tarragona. Definitely visit Tarragona if you want to see very
| well conserved and documented ruins of a large Roman city.
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(page generated 2021-03-18 23:01 UTC)