[HN Gopher] Amateur archaeologist in Switzerland unearths 2k-yea...
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Amateur archaeologist in Switzerland unearths 2k-year-old Roman
dagger
Author : CRConrad
Score : 83 points
Date : 2021-12-01 16:40 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| davidw wrote:
| Well that's odd. I clicked on the 'Crap Ses Gorge' link to learn
| more about the place and... it's a Strava segment?
| bell-cot wrote:
| Just once (4th paragraph), the article refers to the object as a
| "short sword". That strikes me (passably-well-read in some
| related areas) as _very_ different from "dagger".
|
| Any more-expert folks here, to have a sense for how big a deal
| that is (in the context)?
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Short swords do 40% more damage than daggers on average (1d6 vs
| 1d4) and this matters less over time as strength is maxed and
| magic bonuses are applied. If this Roman was at high level, the
| two words were effectively interchangeable for him.
| notjulianjaynes wrote:
| It's possible the author thought using "dagger" twice in two
| sentences sounded clunky.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Most of the complex classifications for swords is a modern
| development, that's often fairly arbitrary. Maybe short sword
| isn't the best term, but it is a short-sword
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| It is a "pugio", a sort of small dagger sidearm for Roman
| soldiers. I can't think of any reason to refer to it as a short
| sword in English as that conjures up the image of a much larger
| weapon. These are essentially the same as the daggers used to
| kill Julius Caesar, for example.
| leafmeal wrote:
| It's impressive to see the difference between the dagger as it
| was discovered and as it's been restored, but I'm really curious
| to see what it would look like in "like-new" condition.
| nuccy wrote:
| Here is another one restored to a better shape [1], close-up
| [2]. I must admit it doesn't look as perfect as replicas (e.g.
| in movies), obviously we have much better and precise
| technology/craftsmanship these days. Probably "as new" may not
| differ that much from what we restore to.
|
| 1. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeology-
| intern...
|
| 2. https://www.archaeology.org/news/8493-200302-germany-
| roman-d...
| musingsole wrote:
| I can never get over how real sword (or dagger) handles look
| so painful to wield. Maybe it's that most of them have lost
| some leather wrapping or else were just ornamental...but I've
| seen several that just looked guaranteed to hurt the wielder
| with each swing.
| SteveGerencser wrote:
| That's because most of them had leather wrapped hilts and
| after all these years the leather is long gone leaving just
| the tang and any decorative embellishments that it had.
| atarian wrote:
| I wonder what archaeologists 2000 years from now will unearth as
| news-worthy.
| adventured wrote:
| A still working Apple II that was forgotten in a bunker.
| josefx wrote:
| Anything newer would probably refuse to boot up due to
| expired certificates and missing drm servers.
| intrasight wrote:
| Bitcoins ;)
| Kenji wrote:
| They will probably find a hard disk with Hackernews comments
| and wonder what kind of dumbasses so-called "hackers" were in
| the 21st century.
| spacelamb wrote:
| Probably objects that make you imagine about what day-to-day
| living was like in the past.
|
| If VR becomes widespread, perhaps the first VR headset. Or
| perhaps niche, quaint items with great craftsmanship (no longer
| used at all in the future), like a high-quality metal
| mechanical pencil, fountain pen, or ballpoint pen.
|
| Early commercial spacecraft (SpaceX) would also be a certainty,
| as the expansion of humanity across space is near-guaranteed
| (as long as humanity doesn't destroy itself). Perhaps also
| today's fashion (thinking of fashion museums).
| airstrike wrote:
| Fidget spinners
| holoduke wrote:
| A few years ago in Amsterdam , The Netherlands a construction
| company had to dig a tunnel through a former canal. The canal
| existed for few hundreds of years and was only a decade ago
| filled and a road was build on top of it. They found about
| 700.000 artifacts from the middle-ages till modern times. Speer
| arrows, swords, guns, money, credit cards, music cassettes,
| smoke pipes etc. I believe there is a exposition dedicated to
| those findings. Very interesting.
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| There's a fun little TV series about this. At first it seems
| silly but it gets quite good.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detectorists
| selleck wrote:
| Sometimes thought it is a bummer living in the states, less of an
| opportunity to go find some 1000+ year old relics knowing full
| well the likelihood of that happening is slim even if I lived in
| another country with bronze/iron age.
| sushsjsuauahab wrote:
| There are likey a lot of dinosaurs still left to be found in
| the central plains :)
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I always felt there were millions of buried gold in certain
| parts of America. Buried money, and gold.
|
| Back in the day before banks we buried, or hid our valuables.
|
| There must be stashes of loot buried in people's back yard?
|
| I bought a metal detector years ago, and got bored very quick.
| I found a quarter, and a pot metal medallion.
|
| Here's a good treasure story.
|
| I knew a lady years ago who went through a rough divorce. Her
| husband made his wad in the 80's as a drug dealer. When they
| were fat, and happy, they would whoop it up. This one night
| they went to the Fairmont Hotel for dinner. She drove home
| because he was to inebriated.
|
| They lived out at the beach. In a drunken stupor, along with
| other substances running through his body, he decided to hide
| his "house money".
|
| He walked out of the house with his pipe filled with $800,000.
|
| He woke up the next day not remembering anything.
|
| She told him what he did.
|
| He rushed out to the back yard, and nothing was disturbed on
| the ground. He frantically ran around the neighborhood looking
| for his pipe of money. He went to the beach to no avail.
|
| They were both disappointed.
|
| But it was only part of their money.
|
| Years later they got a divorce.
|
| She told me this story many times. I was excited because I was
| planning on going to the new owners of the house, and offer
| free landscaping. It was a long shot, but I love capers.
|
| The big problem was his money bank pipe was pvc, but it was
| still on my mind.
|
| A few years later, my divorced friend saw the new owners of the
| beach house in Safeway, and told them the story.
|
| I doubt they found any money, but I will always remember the
| lost beach/drug money.
|
| (Both passed away, so I feel this treasure story can be told.)
| saetaes wrote:
| People lived in the US 1000+ years ago, and I feel pretty
| confident that if you know where to look, relics can still be
| found.
| handrous wrote:
| I think most folks would have more fun with a metal detector
| and a map of Civil and Revolutionary War military camps and
| battlegrounds, or even just poking around ghost towns or old
| farmhouses, than looking for pre-Columbian artifacts, up here
| north of the Rio. It's largely disappointing and if you
| actually manage to sort-of prove that the broken barely-
| recognizable spear point you found came from some named group
| of people circa 800 CE, you'll inevitably find that we know
| almost nothing about them and that what we do know makes them
| sound exactly like every other group around that time, since
| we just don't know much about any of them besides trite
| generalities.
| voz_ wrote:
| Yes, but they were not nearly advanced enough for metallurgy
| and the like. Their artifacts, while no less important, fade
| away far quicker.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The oldest copper artifacts we have are from the old copper
| complex around Lake Superior, and more recent metalworking
| traditions were present throughout much of the Americas.
| voz_ wrote:
| Perhaps you are not deeply familiar with this realm, but
| trivial (native) copper working is not generally
| considered metallurgy.
|
| For an amateur but no less correct source, wikipedia
| provides a good quip for us:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-
| Columbian_Am...
|
| Archaeological evidence has not revealed metal smelting
| or alloying of metals by pre-Columbian native peoples
| north of the Rio Grande; however, they did use native
| copper extensively.[32]
|
| Which then further cites: George Rapp Jr, Guy Gibbon &
| Kenneth Ames (1998). Archaeology of Prehistoric Native
| America: an Encyclopedia. New York: Taylor & Francis. p.
| 26.
|
| I do not own this book, so I apologize I cannot verify
| the citation.
| wincy wrote:
| I didn't realize how easy native copper smelting was
| until I watched some of those primitive YouTube channels
| where they make a water filtration system and smelt some
| copper using a hand made smelter. Linked below if anyone
| is interested.
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=f0BjU20kU5E
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Native copper working _is_ considered metallurgy in
| archaeology. If you disagree, feel free to take it up
| with the archaeometallurgists.
|
| Moreover, purification from ores was done. The so-called
| copper bells of the southwest were mainly produced from
| ores rather than native copper and were often alloyed
| with arsenic or silver to modify the color. The main
| center of production was paquime (~180mi west of the Rio
| Grande), but the cultural area extends well over the
| border into AZ, NM, and CO.
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(page generated 2021-12-01 23:01 UTC)