[HN Gopher] Rare 2,100-year-old gold coin bears name of obscure ... ___________________________________________________________________ Rare 2,100-year-old gold coin bears name of obscure ruler from pre- Roman Britain Author : Brajeshwar Score : 163 points Date : 2023-10-29 15:25 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.livescience.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.livescience.com) | jphoward wrote: | One thing I always wonder is how did all these countries manage | to find enough gold to run an (albeit tiny) economy off them? | I've never heard of/seen a gold mine in the UK, and yet 2000 | years ago they were mining enough to mint currency. Was it all | relatively surface level and rapidly mined out, and now all gone? | jacoblambda wrote: | more or less yes. Everything that was easy to find and extract | largely has been. | Waterluvian wrote: | > Was it all relatively surface level and rapidly mined out, | and now all gone? | | Pretty much. Elemental gold or relatively easy to refine alloys | were stripped off the land over many thousands of years. Now we | have to go deeper to find more. | okr wrote: | I would guess these currencies took over gradually. And they | never really disappeared. So it got more and more. | cyberax wrote: | Most of the economy back then was non-monetary. | | If you're interested in this area, look up the Inca Empire. It | did not really have money at all. | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | I'm fairly sure that's not accurate. Source for "most" | economies not having money? | | It would appear based on some simple googling that "money" | has existed in many cultures going back 30,000 years, in two | forms: "money of account" and "money of exchange". Of both of | those they have taken various forms. Minted coins did not | appear until around 3,000 years ago. | cyberax wrote: | "Monetary economy" means that it uses money for the | exchanges, rather than barter. Most pre-industrial | economies were not monetary. | | Barter economy certainly existed, probably from before the | Human Sapiens. But _money_ is a relatively recent | invention. | ETH_start wrote: | Good paper from the progenitor of the blockchain, Nick | Szabo, positing that the first moneys emerged up to | 75,000 years ago and possibly enabled Homo sapiens | sapiens to supersede Neanderthals: | | https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeec | h/C... | cyberax wrote: | I seriously doubt that currency (a standardized medium of | exchange) existed in prehistoric times. But barter | economy certainly did, we have plenty of archeological | evidence for it. | | Still, even the barter economy was used for mostly | "optional" activities. People were not dependent on it | for survival, a tribe could live just fine on their own, | without trade. | Wytwwww wrote: | > currency (a standardized medium of exchange) | | That's a pretty recent innovation, standardized coins | didn't appear until the 600s BC, barely 100-150 years or | so prior to the Greco-Persian wars. Widescale | international trade existed for 1000+ years prior to that | as far as we know, you don't necessarily standardized | money for that. | tomjakubowski wrote: | > Barter economy certainly existed | | What is the best evidence for this historically? | Anthropologists strongly dispute this idea, and believe | barter was mostly used for trade between total strangers | (e.g. traders from outside your society or "economy") | | Graeber's _Debt: the first 5000 years_ covers this topic | cyberax wrote: | > What is the best evidence for this historically? | | Mostly archeological. There are many burials that contain | items that were clearly not locally sourced. In some | cases, they had to be transported for thousands of | kilometers. | | And quite often this was done for non-functional items | such as jewelry or dyes. | kspacewalk2 wrote: | Er... Money has existed for thousands of years, and has | replaced barter in any society with even moderate amounts | of specialization, and a population size that gets into | the thousands. In Roman times, this was already the case | for thousands of years. Money is one of the great | enablers of trade and specialization, of empire building. | Barter economy cannot sustain any of that, because barter | economy does not scale. Money is a relatively recent | invention in the time scale of our species existence, but | that's still 3-4 thousand years of near-ubiquitous use, | minimum. | cyberax wrote: | The Roman Empire was basically modern. It had currency, | banks, loans with interest, etc. | | At the same time, the Slavic countries up north still | were pre-monetary. There was little to no currency, but | there was extensive trade in fur, salt, and other goods. | eesmith wrote: | Was there money in pre-1778 Hawaii? Not that I have been | able to figure out. I believe it was a gift economy. | | There certainly was specialization in Hawaii, and with a | population of over 100,000 would seem like a good | counter-example. | | > Barter economy cannot sustain any of that, because | barter economy does not scale. | | From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money , | "There is no evidence, historical or contemporary, of a | society in which barter is the main mode of exchange;[23] | instead, non-monetary societies operated largely along | the principles of gift economy and debt." | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non- | monetary_economy#Other_mon... list other money-less | systems including "the Incas and possibly, also the | empire of Majapahit". Both were empires. | Wytwwww wrote: | > for thousands of years | | It depends on how you define money. Coins didn't really | exist until the 7th century BC, that doesn't mean long- | range widescale trade did not exist prior to that for | 1000+ years but they didn't generally use money (in the | way we would understand it at least) so the boundary | between using money and barter wasn't really that clear. | noselasd wrote: | This is highly dependent on the location. We certainly | know there was a large interconnectede monetary economy | around the middle east and the mediterranean around 3000 | years ago. The roman empire was largely a monetarian | economy as well, about 2000 years prior to what is | commonly referred to as "pre-industrial", they had quite | an extensive banking system as well. | monero-xmr wrote: | They used money. The Incas had a system for accounting using | knots https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu | | You don't need physical coins to have money | cyberax wrote: | They certainly used _accounting_, but not money (currency). | They were not assigning certain monetary value to items. | monero-xmr wrote: | I think it's highly likely that a system built for | counting was used for counting loans, debts, and | resources. The foundation of civilization is resource | allocation. | scarecrowbob wrote: | I'm not an expert in this so maybe am just off base. | | But the key difference (I have been told) is what you can | do with that accounting. | | Like, I can walk into a shop and buy anything on the wall | with money, whereas that kind of accounting may have very | different implications for what you can do with it. | | Additionally, I can take money that I gathered from one | source and use it somewhere else, and it's fungible in | that I can use it anywhere else in the system. If I have | a debt to one person in earlier systems that debt may be | non-transferable. | | If those two elements are true, it becomes very difficult | to do a lot of the things that we think of as money, | specifically interest and massive accumulation. | cyberax wrote: | It assumes that Inca used formal loans and debts. They | certainly used accounting for resources, though. | weatherlight wrote: | An accounting system using knots isn't money, per ser. | These systems of credit were based on mutual trust and | social relations, often without a physical representation | of money as we know it today. | | Comparing this to coinage, the innovation of coins | introduced a standardized physical object that could | represent value, which allowed for a different kind of | economic activity not solely based on personal trust and | relationships. Coinage enabled transactions with strangers | and facilitated trade over larger distances and among | larger groups of people, where personal credit | relationships were not feasible. | | Money, has a specificity to it. In essence, while early | credit systems were based on social relationships and trust | within communities, coinage represented a more impersonal | and widely accepted medium of exchange that did not | necessarily rely on social bonds. This distinction is | crucial because it allowed for the expansion of trade and | the concept of money as an abstract unit of account, rather | than a direct reflection of social debts and credits. | csomar wrote: | So they invented the modern fiat monetary system before | it was cool? | monero-xmr wrote: | I think there is a lot of fantasy thinking that ancient | times didn't use money. Trade is evident from the | earliest times as proven through goods at burial sites | that originated thousands of miles away. Trade | necessitated commoditized assets as intermediary value | stores, and common ones included salt and furs in | addition to hard metal coins and commoditized metal | objects like swords. | | Social relationships are still important the higher you | go in finance - it's much easier to get a $100 million | loan for a new building with a strong relationship with a | banker than as a stranger, regardless of collateral. | | I think a pre-commercial time where people didn't care | about money is a fiction. | weatherlight wrote: | There's a lot of anthropological and archaeological | evidence to the contrary. People indeed had trade and | exchanges in ancient times, but these did not aalways | necessitate a formalized system of money as we understand | it today. The early forms of trade were often based on | complex systems of credit and debt that were deeply | intertwined with social relationships and trust within | communities. David Graeber's work, "Debt: the first 5000 | years," highlights that for more than 5,000 years before | the invention of coins, humans extensively used such | credit systems to buy and sell goods, long before the | existence of coins or cash. | | While it is true that trade is evident from ancient | times, with goods found at burial sites that originated | thousands of miles away, this does not automatically | imply that all trade was facilitated by a commoditized | asset serving as a universal medium of exchange. In many | cases, goods like salt, furs, and metal objects were | indeed used in trade, but they were part of a broader | system of barter and reciprocal exchange, which could | function effectively without a standardized form of | money. | | Regarding the role of social relationships in finance, | while it's accurate that relationships remain crucial, | especially for large transactions in modern times, this | does not discount the fact that in the past, community | trust and social bonds were often the primary means of | securing credit, not collateral or commoditized money. | This is evident in how competitive markets and the | scarcity of trust can affect transactions, as Graeber | notes through an anecdote where mutual aid within a | community was a given, not a transaction requiring formal | repayment. | | The idea of a pre-commercial time where 'people didn't | care about money' may indeed be fictional, but it's more | nuanced than simply saying they used money in the way we | do now. They cared about value and exchange, but these | were frequently managed through social mechanisms rather | than through impersonal, commoditized money. It's | essential to understand that the concept of money has | evolved and that early forms of trade and credit were | valid economic systems in their own right, even if they | don't match the monetary systems we are familiar with | today. | monero-xmr wrote: | My broader point is that certain people think that there | is this utopian "pre money time" where capitalism didn't | exist. I believe capitalism is the default, free trade is | the default, and the fundamental idea that people will | engage in for-profit commerce is embedded into our | psychologies. | weatherlight wrote: | capitalism, as a system defined by profit-driven markets | and private ownership, is a relatively modern concept and | not the default economic state throughout human history. | earlier societies often operated on principles of | reciprocity and communal sharing rather than for-profit | trade. while the inclination to trade can be considered | inherent, the forms and rules of trade have varied | greatly across cultures and eras, shaped by differing | social and political contexts. | progne wrote: | Money-as-knots-in-a-rope sounds closer to the modern | money-as-bits-on-a-plate than does money-as-metal-disks. | weatherlight wrote: | indeed, the comparison of quipu to modern digital money | highlights the diversity of forms that 'money' can take. | However, the fundamental difference lies in the functions | and roles that these systems serve within their | respective societies. The quipu was primarily an | accounting tool, part of a complex system of record- | keeping used by the Incas, which facilitated the | administration of their economy, particularly in terms of | tribute and state resources. It did not serve as a medium | of exchange in the same way coins or modern digital money | do. | | modern money, whether digital or physical, serves several | key functions: it is a medium of exchange, a unit of | account, and a store of value. While the quipu certainly | functioned as a unit of account, it's not clear that it | served as a medium of exchange or a store of value. These | are essential characteristics that define 'money' in the | economic sense. | | the impersonal nature of coinage and modern digital money | allows them to facilitate trade and economic activity on | a scale and with a degree of anonymity that's not | possible with a system like quipu, which is deeply | embedded in the social and political fabric of the | society that uses it. | | The transition to coinage and later to digittal | transactions represents a move towards a more | standardized, divisible, and portable form of money that | can be used in a wide range of transactions, with or | without a pre-existing relationship between the parties | involved. This is quite different from the quipu, which | was embedded in a specific cultural context and may not | have been readily exchangeable or understood outside of | that context. | | So while it's tempting to draw parallels between ancient | accounting systems and modern digital currencies, we must | be careful not to conflate the two. Each serves its | purpose within its particular economic and social milieu, | with specific attributes and limitations that define its | use as "money." | zopa wrote: | > It did not serve as a medium of exchange in the same | way coins or modern digital money do. | | Source for the confidence here? We know that a corvee | economy existed, but I'm skeptical that we can rule out | private quipo-based exchange. The evidence base is pretty | thin; a lot of stuff didn't survive Pizarro. | weatherlight wrote: | https://www.peruforless.com/blog/quipu/ | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu?useskin=vector they | were more like ledgers or logs... not money. (Early | databases perhaps?) | Wytwwww wrote: | > Coinage enabled transactions with strangers and | facilitated trade over larger distances and among larger | groups of people, where personal credit relationships | were not feasible. | | Extensive trade international trade networks existed | during the entire bronze age and the preceding periods | without any coins, though. Coins are useful as an | standardized accounting unit and are easy to transport | but fundamentally are not that different from barter. | keep_reading wrote: | Of course knots aren't "money" because money also needs | scarcity and a way to prevent forgery but we have plenty | of other examples: Rai stones, cowrie shells, other rare | things ... | 7thaccount wrote: | Money and debt aren't exactly the same thing though right? | The quipu is a system of IOUs iirc. More like the English | debt stick. With currency/money (gold, silver, copper, fiat | notes), we make a transaction on the spot and we're done. | There is no debt in the simple case. The poster is saying | they didn't use money and it sounds like they didn't. They | used a system of tracking debts which could likely be | traded. | | I know it's all tightly related, but I believe there is a | difference. | neeleshs wrote: | It is fun to think of knots as rudimentary Merkel trees! | andsoitis wrote: | > Most of the economy back then was non-monetary. | | In 600 BCE, Lydia's King Alyattes minted what is believed to | be the first official currency, the Lydian stater. The coins | were made from electrum, a mixture of silver and gold that | occurs naturally, and the coins were stamped with pictures | that acted as denominations. | | https://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/roots_of_money.asp | | But also note that physical currency is not necessary for | "money". Money has been around for about 5000 years, ridding | us from barter. | gilleain wrote: | Interesting question - it seems like there were Welsh mines in | Roman times: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolaucothi_Gold_Mines | | > They are the only mines for Welsh gold outside those of the | Dolgellau gold-belt, and are a Scheduled Ancient Monument. They | are also the only known Roman gold mines in Britain, although | it does not exclude the likelihood that they exploited other | known sources in Devon in South West England, north Wales, | Scotland and elsewhere. | lostlogin wrote: | Thanks. | | The wiki on this mine is quite extensive. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolaucothi_Gold_Mines | weatherlight wrote: | Phenomenal book that cover's this exact topic, "Debt: The First | 5000 Years." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years | "The book argues that debt has typically retained its primacy, | with cash and barter usually limited to situations of low trust | involving strangers or those not considered credit-worthy" | | It would make sense that cash would pop up once the Romans | arrived, and would be in small amounts to facilitate spot | transactions between Romans and the pre-Roman peoples of | Britain and why there's such little amounts of cash. | | Further more, I can imagine a scenario where Roman coins were | melted down to make these coins (total conjecture) . | 7thaccount wrote: | I've seen some work on this as well. It would make sense in | small tight knit communities to help out your neighbor when | you could and vice-versa. There would be a relatively small | need for coinage until things became a lot more complex and | urbanized. | MichaelZuo wrote: | That's still true nowadays if you limit 'cash' to just | physical currency. | weatherlight wrote: | its not quite the same, I explain why in the comments below | this one. :) | LudwigNagasena wrote: | The book is a combination of anecdata and speculation | presented in a polemical style. Not really something that I | would call "phenomenal". | weatherlight wrote: | the book stimulates important discussions on economic | history and the roots of our financial systems. While its | style is assertive, its contribution to questioning | established economic assumptions is undeniably valuable. | its also backed by anthropological and archaeological | evidence. | LudwigNagasena wrote: | Unfortunately, Graeber is not well-versed in economic | theory so him "questioning established economic | assumptions" often resembles fighting windmills or not | even that. | | If you know any actual contributions to economics or the | history of economics that were consequences of his | stimulation, I would be glad to hear about them. | weatherlight wrote: | Graeber's background in economic anthropology offers a | fresh lens through which to view economic history, | highlighting the social and cultural dimensions that | traditional economic theories sometimes overlook. His | work has encouraged interdisciplinary dialogue, prompting | economists and historians alike to incorporate broader | socio-cultural understandings into their analyses. While | his approach differs from conventional economic | theorizing, it complements it by adding depth to our | understanding of economic phenomena. | LudwigNagasena wrote: | Right, but are there _actual_ contributions to economics | or the history of economics that were consequences of his | "stimulation"? | | Also, saying that he single-handedly prompted "economists | and historians alike to incorporate broader socio- | cultural understandings into their analyses" is a huge | denigration of institutional economics, behavioural | economics, Austrian economics, social economics, etc. | weatherlight wrote: | It's a relatively recent addition to the discorse, having | been published just over a decade ago. | | It's definitely apart of the heterodox tradition in | economics (without diminishing what's already there), | which often takes longer to be integrated into the | mainstream. | | So, I guess time will tell? | sebmellen wrote: | I don't say this as an accusation, but your writing is | remarkably similar to ChatGPT output. | ksaj wrote: | Missing the giveaway "However..." clause that nearly all | ChatGPT descriptions have in them. | Natsu wrote: | I made a prediction that I was going to find out that | Graeber was a communist thinker before I looked him up | just now. I was not surprised. | bibanez wrote: | My feeling when I read Debt was that he was smart enough | to understand conventional economic theory. My brother | studied economics and he was the one who actually | recommended me the book. | tomrod wrote: | As a second nomination, I hold a PhD in economics and | found the book interesting. | bedobi wrote: | I don't mean to be uncharitable but you need to read up | on what actual experts say about things Graeber says. | He's Joe Rogan level knowledgable, and that's not a | compliment. | spicymapotofu wrote: | Where can I search for this kind of discourse? There's a | lot of "actual" here without names. | Exoristos wrote: | And very tendentious. | permo-w wrote: | I've never heard of a gold mine in the UK, but Welsh gold is | something you often see and hear of, whatever that tells you | netbioserror wrote: | As early as the Bronze Age, Britain was part of wide-spanning | trade networks that funneled Cornwallish tin to the empires of | the Near East. I would imagine that even before the invention | of true coinage, various quantities of gold and other precious | metals were circulating in Britain from those Mediterranean | sources. | Turing_Machine wrote: | > As early as the Bronze Age | | Note that while Great Britain didn't have a whole lot of | gold, it _did_ have a whole lot of tin. | | You can't make bronze without tin. People who want to make | bronze will give you gold for it. | 867-5309 wrote: | >Cornwallish | | _Cornish_ would do | justincormack wrote: | I have been in a gold mine in Wales, I think it was this one | that is Roman https://www.visitwales.com/attraction/visitor- | centre/dolauco... | nn3 wrote: | They didn't necessarily need gold. For example in bronze/iron | age trading it was common to use relatively standardized small | bars of other metals for payment. These were not coins, but | approximately had the same function. | dghughes wrote: | > how did all these countries manage to find enough gold | | They may not have. Some gold mixed with silver or other metals | may have been common. In other words counterfeiting whether | officially sanctioned or by thieves was probably not uncommon. | lostlogin wrote: | I have a 'silver' Roman coin, but it's a thin layer and it's | bronze underneath. | creer wrote: | To complement the answer "yes, there was surface level gold | which was simply mined, and early", also 2000 years ago is not | that long ago. By that time there was commerce going on across | all of Europe, and gold had been used in coins and jewelry or | cult items by most of these cultures for a long time BEFORE | that. So that any specific gold could actually have come from | elsewhere. | Simon_ORourke wrote: | There's plenty of gold, or at least there was, in the south | west of Britain back in the day. I'd assume pre Roman gold was | all surface level stuff, but there were stories of way more | industrial processing of silver by the Romans in Spain. | | https://www.jstor.org/stable/296070#:~:text=The%20silver%20m... | . | retrac wrote: | In a few rare spots of the world, gold is literally just in the | dirt and rocks. | | There's certainly some gold in the UK; there's still probably | thousands of extractable tonnes of gold in the UK. Whether a | deposit is _economic_ to extract is a different question. Very | few sites in the world can compete with the gold mines of | Canada, China and Australia with their very rich deposits. | | > Was it all relatively surface level and rapidly mined out, | and now all gone? | | To some degree this is a factor. Copper and tin are other | resources you'll find are already heavily extracted in Europe: | | > The main mining district of the Kupferschiefer in Germany was | Mansfeld Land, which operated from at least 1199 AD, and has | provided 2,009,800 tonnes of copper and 11,111 tonnes of | silver. The Mansfeld mining district was exhausted in 1990. | | It's not so much that they literally ran out - there's still | plenty of copper there. But it was only viable to run in the | East German (Communist) economy. Now that most is extracted, | there are diminishing returns. It takes more labour and | processing and etc. than extracting from a deposit elsewhere | would. | | When Europeans came to North America and reached regions that | had never had a particularly high population density and had | never had much mining - like in parts of the Rocky Mountains - | they sometimes literally found gold dust lying at the bottom of | riverbeds and chunks of gold ore sticking out of the side of | cliff-faces. (Cue up a gold rush.) Europe's first large-scale | miners probably had a similar experience of abundance once, | many thousands of years ago. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | What's surprising to me is that cultures all across the world | agreed that this shiny metal was valuable and could be readily | exchanged anywhere for goods and services. | | We know that gold is valuable today because of its | distribution, availability and metallurgical properties. But | random tribes who haven't even seen an iron tool somehow | decided that this shiny metal was scarce and valuable enough to | hoard and desire. | | Is it something in the metal itself? | eszed wrote: | Incorruptible - as in, doesn't rust - and is commonly found | in a state that doesn't need to be refined. | Wytwwww wrote: | It's shiny and very easy to work and doesn't rust. The | complete opposite of iron, which didn't really become that | widespread until the bronze age trade routes collapsed (tin | and copper aren't found in the same place). Bronze was also a | much nicer metal than iron back in those days. Much, much | easier to work and about as strong. | hiddencost wrote: | Scarcity is actually an incredibly valuable property. Control | over gold production meant control over the money supply. | Otherwise, anyone could inflate your currency into oblivion. | WalterBright wrote: | Just imagine what would happen if the money supply | consisted of pieces of paper that the government could | print any time it wanted more money! | fl7305 wrote: | > Is it something in the metal itself? | | Yes. I never understood it myself, until the first time I | held a heavy gold necklace. The feeling is hard to describe. | dboreham wrote: | There were gold mines: | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_mining_in_Scotland | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_gold | spacecadet wrote: | lol age of empires man. There was gold just sticking out of the | ground everywhere. You just needed some pleebs to mine it and | carry it back to your keep. or was that stronghold? I forget XP | jmyeet wrote: | There was gold mining in Britain (specifically Scotland) at | least 2,500 years ago [1]. | | [1]: https://www.bullionbypost.co.uk/index/gold/gold-mining-in- | th... | pyuser583 wrote: | It came from trade. The exact provenance was not important. | | Herodotus tried to figure out where all the "stuff" is coming | from, but mostly found stories he admits are far-fetched. | | Modern historians take pleasure in proving his "myths" to be | fact. | | "Apparently there is some place in Asia where gold is mined by | ants!" | fiedzia wrote: | Gold is relatively common, it's just that most mines were mined | completely or to the point where further exploration was not | economically viable, so few were preserved, though many mines | that we have been used recently for other minerals did contain | some gold in the past. | | From first google link | (https://www.bullionbypost.co.uk/index/gold/gold-mining-in- | th...): | | "Gold has been mined in Scotland for over 2,500 years. There | was gold mining in Crawford from the early 1500s" - and that's | just a few examples. | | I recommend reading about or visiting Great Orme if you are | interested in mining, it's a copper mine that was in use since | bronze age. | jakedata wrote: | I think that if humanity survives another 2000 years, our | descendants will know far less about us than we do about our | ancestors. | wcoenen wrote: | The Long Now foundation is trying to fix that, e.g. with their | Rosetta project. They actually managed to get a copy onto comet | "67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko"! | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Project | | https://longnow.org/ideas/after-more-than-a-decade-esas-rose... | qup wrote: | For what reason? | pjmlp wrote: | A few things come to mind, the longevity of digital based | information, how electronics doesn't survive as well as clay | and paper, encrypted storage, commercial software stored | information, and how well we may nuke ourselves. | stevenwoo wrote: | Digital data that we don't have a very long history of | maintaining and largely not maintained and most paper print | matter is very short lived relative to what we have gleaned | from metal, stone and clay used by prior civilizations. | scarecrowbob wrote: | I think this is an interesting question in that it brings up | two points. | | The media this culture creates (specifically writing, in | general) is very specific but very fragile. So eventually it | wears out, and every year our storage media get vastly more | fragile- photos from the early 1900s might last longer than | stuff on hard drives if humans forget how to build those | kinds of things. | | But (and this is what I find interesting) the oral traditions | that go back (in what we call north America) go back 15k | years or more don't "count" under the current epistemic | regime. Generally this history isn't something most of the | people I run into are aware of, and when people are aware of | them they come across as fables/ folk tales/ lore and not | material history. | | I live around a lot of native folks whose history has been | often lost as they have been the victims of a vast genocide | seeking to eradicate their culture. However, if you look | online you can find discussions about oral histories around | hunting mammoths, for instance. This has become a relevant | discussion as the amount of genocide has eased up a bit and | we have, for instance, native folks doing academic | anthropology who can tie an archeological history of (say) | large mammoth kills to specific oral narratives. | | So, I get what seems to be the original point (our writing | will become less legible), but I also find some irony in the | idea that people with oral traditions might know a lot more | about their long-term ancestors than our rather ephemeral | culture. | kouru225 wrote: | I don't understand why people say this. Digital formats can be | easily ported over to other digital formats and the more we can | automate, the easier it'll be to port digital information from | one format to another. I don't think we'll lose very much data | at all. | kaashif wrote: | Unless civilization is destroyed after a nuclear war, solar | event, something else. Knowledge could be lost in a handful | of generations. Maybe a global pandemic makes everyone have | constant debilitating brain fog and everything just stops | working. I think the right actor in the right place could | make these things (except the solar thing) happen. | | Although a good point to consider is that we have lost the | vast majority of information about the past, so it's not like | the old way of writing stone tablets or whatever is | necessarily good. | wcoenen wrote: | Preserving digital data requires constant maintenance, | because none of the media we use will last forever. Any | maintenance gap of a few decades means the data is lost. Such | gaps are inevitable over longer timescales like thousands of | years. | xvector wrote: | Computers from the 70s still work fine today, and | technology is more resilient, not less. | | All of Wikipedia (and relevant human histories and | discoveries) can fit on a small USB drive. | kouru225 wrote: | Preserving analog data also requires maintenance, except | digital maintenance is much easier to do and can be, at | least partially, automated, while analog maintenance is | specialty work that can't be automated at all. | Wytwwww wrote: | > Preserving digital data requires constant maintenance, | because none of the media we use will last forever | | That's the only reason we have any texts written by Greek | and Romans constant maintenance and copying, and that's | also why almost everything has been lost over the ages. | Clay tablets from the bronze age are an aberration. | forinti wrote: | We produce huge amounts of artifacts in plastic, metal, | ceramics, etc, that will last a very long time. | | Archeologists will have tons of garbage to go through, lots of | it with dates and place of origin molded into them. | ianburrell wrote: | Future archeologists are going to know lots about our | consumption from all the food and drink containers. | | Some written items, like street signs, are going to last a | long time. | scarecrowbob wrote: | Well, considering that we have human ancestors going back | hundreds of millenia, I feel like we actually know very little | about them. | | Often I get the feeling that the culture I live in makes so | many assumptions about other people that we misunderstand even | folks who are living now, so people I think we have a very hard | time understanding the folks who were living 50k years ago who | were every bit as smart, kind, and funny as we are now. | ianburrell wrote: | If you are a reader, you probably have more books than the | entire corpus of ancient Greek writing. | | We still make lots of paper books. Some will be buried in | places they survive. If civilization doesn't completely | collapse, somebody will collect books. | | If we really cared about preservation, we could archive things | better. Like printing books on something that won't degrade. Or | inventing archival data storage. I can see focus on | preservation happening if there is a near collapse of | civilization. | em-bee wrote: | preserving books is not cheap. | | most private collections will end up destroyed, because their | value is unknown and the cost to even evaluate what is worth | preserving exceeds the value of the books themselves. | | just the other day i heard the story of a private collector | leaving 75,000 books behind, that the heirs can't even afford | to dispose of, let alone preserve. there is no complete | catalogue, if there is one at all, and most certainly not a | digital catalogue. | | they will most likely end up being permanently destroyed in | paper recycling, if they keep the house. otherwise it will be | cheaper to just tear the house down with the books still | inside. | | so in the end the only books being preserved will be | libraries as long as those are being funded. for less popular | titles that means just a few copies of each book. and those | that can be digitized before they are being destroyed. | | beyond that what will survive are at best maybe a few private | libraries that are on privately owned properties owned by a | family that cares. | | with that in mind it would actually be an interesting | question how to bury books with minimal effort so that they | have at least some chance to survive | Wytwwww wrote: | Outside of archeology we basically know nothing about pre-Roman | Britain. We hardly know anything about Roman Britain too and we | barely know what happened after the Romans left. | | Barring some world ending apocalypse I find it hard to imagine | that, even if let's say 1000 times less written material | survived the next 2000 years compared to the 2000 that preceded | us our descendants would still have several magnitudes more | information about our times than we do about 0 BC (especially | if we're talking about Britain or pretty much any people in | Europe who did not speak Latin or Greek). | Dalewyn wrote: | Who's the obscure ruler? | | I refuse to click clickbait. | gilleain wrote: | It's "Esunertos". Presumably you would have immediately known | who that was, so if they put it in the title it would have been | obvious, right? | | While clickbait is annoying, of course, not every single | article title is clickbait :) | Dalewyn wrote: | If a title refuses to describe the subject without further | interaction for no good reason at all, it's clickbait. | | Clickbait can die in a fire. | | Thanks for the info though. | gilleain wrote: | Ok, but the problem here is that the article would either | have to use his actual name ('Esunertos') which almost no | one would know, or it would have to summarise: | | >coin bears the name "Esunertos," which can be translated | as "mighty as the god Esos," (also spelled Esus) ... dates | to sometime between 50 B.C. and 30 B.C., a time after | Julius Caesar invaded Britain twice around 55 B.C. to 54 | B.C | | Into the title. I'm not sure which would be better, really. | mcpackieh wrote: | _" Rare 2,100-year-old gold coin bears name of Esunertos, | an obscure ruler from pre-Roman Britain"_ | | Two extra words. It's not so hard. | Dalewyn wrote: | Rare 2,100-year-old gold coin featuring Esunertos, a | ruler from pre-Roman Britain. | | You're welcome. | tejohnso wrote: | > The rare coin was discovered in March 2023 in Hampshire | county and was auctioned Sept. 28 for 20,400 British pounds | ($24,720), Spink auction house said in a series of statements. | | > A Latin alphabetic inscription on the coin bears the name | "Esunertos," which can be translated as "mighty as the god | Esos," (also spelled Esus) the statements said. The name itself | is Gaulish, a language commonly spoken in the region at the | time, John Sills, an archaeologist at the University of | Oxford's Institute of Archaeology who examined the coin before | it was auctioned, told Live Science in an email. | | > The coin dates to sometime between 50 B.C. and 30 B.C., a | time after Julius Caesar invaded Britain twice around 55 B.C. | to 54 B.C., the statement said. Caesar's invasions failed to | establish permanent Roman control over Britain. It wasn't until | after another Roman invasion, launched in A.D. 43 by Emperor | Claudius, that the Roman Empire managed to gain long-term | control over part of the island. | | > This coin is one of only three on record that bear the name | Esunertos, Sills said. All three were found in the same region, | and it's possible that the territory controlled by Esunertos | included part of what is now western Hampshire, Sills noted. | tired-turtle wrote: | This was the opposite of clickbait. | | The pertinent part of the discovery is a 2100 year old coin | from pre-Roman Britain stamped with some ("obscure") ruler's | name, meaning the British Isles had coin-based commerce before | the Romans arrived. The ruler's name is incidental and not | itself germane to the conversation, hence why it was elided | from the title. | weatherlight wrote: | The answer doesn't fit nicely into the title......sooo? read | the article I guess? | Garklein wrote: | > The name itself is Gaulish, a language commonly spoken in the | region at the time | | A bit of research says that Gaulish was only spoke in Continental | Europe. Is the inscription on the coin just a similar Celtic | language? | Cacti wrote: | I mean, British kings holding French land and French kings | holding British land is... well, not new. | rz2k wrote: | Though not new, the well known example of Norman claims in | France is a thousand years newer than this coin. | AlotOfReading wrote: | Brittonic was likely very close to gaulish. It's possible the | authors just had a simple mixup or possibly subscribe to one of | the various hypotheses that they're genetically closely related | (e.g. gallo-brittonic). | cmrdporcupine wrote: | Evidence I think shows was plenty of back and forth trade and | population movement between Britons and Gauls in that period. | And at this point in history or just prior I _suspect_ | Brittonic and Gaulish were more dialects or branches of a | common P-Celtic language, but there is controversy about this | topic. | | In any case, language aside, esp after the Romans conquered | Gaul, many Gaulish tribes had power centres among the Britons | in areas of what is now England. There's been chariot burials | discovered in Britain that look basically identical to those | from the continent. | | E.g. the Parisi were a Brittonic tribe mentioned by the Romans | that share a name with the Parisii of Gaul (for which Paris is | named), and likely were quite connected. | | I believe in fact that part of the justification the Romans | gave for their invasion of Britain was in fact that the | (defeated) Gauls were using it as a power base to cause | problems for the Romans in Gaul. | | And then a few hundred years later, it got flipped around and | some Britons fled from Saxon invasion back to the continent | into what is now Brittany in France and Britonia in Galicia in | Spain. | | This is a good book on this topic: https://www.amazon.ca/Blood- | Celts-New-Ancestral-Story/dp/050... | readyplayernull wrote: | Looks like a bicycle | qwerty456127 wrote: | > an Iron Age man who said he was as "mighty" as a god | | I wonder if such people were actually believed (by their | followers or by themselves) wielding enormous supernatural powers | or if descriptions of this kind were just political flattery. | gleenn wrote: | 2100 years ago was before Christ and at least a few people | think he's pretty important. Seems reasonable to assume there | was enough mysticism that people would believe it. | qwerty456127 wrote: | > Seems reasonable to assume there was enough mysticism | | Is there a reason to believe ancient people had no skepticism | and popularly took mysticism seriously? | carbotaniuman wrote: | Even today there are people who have little skepticism and | take mysticism seriously, it is likely that any evidence | against this person did not survive the times. | qwerty456127 wrote: | Indeed. Even today "there are people...". What I am | curious about is how much does the average degree of | seriousness differ between our and their times. We | seemingly tend to assume people of the distant past | predominantly were extremely naive and sincerely believed | whatever we find written by them. But what if they were | almost as rational as modern people are and that's we who | are naive when reasoning about their beliefs? | Loughla wrote: | I think it's less about being naive and more about the | base of information. | | I believe I need antibiotics when I have an appropriate | infection, because modern medicine has built an entire | catalogue of reasons. | | If we don't have that information, and we do have | "experts" saying it's because our autumn sacrifice wasn't | good enough, then my guess is that's what most people | will believe. | | Make the best choice you can with the available | information, sort of thing. | skinner927 wrote: | When a bad harvest, a pack of hungry wolves, violent | neighbors, or a small cut that becomes infected, are all | life threatening possibilities, I think mysticism overrules | skepticism. | anonymouskimmer wrote: | It might just have been the name his parents gave him. In such | cases it would just be an aspirational name such as Chastity, | or one meant to draw the favor of a particular god such as | Jesus or Christian. | maximinus_thrax wrote: | Can someone explain why this is remarkable? Is there something | special about that ruler? Or about coins that age in Britain? | | > "Within a rapidly changing political landscape, I suspect that | new political leaders emerged; sometimes flourishing, sometimes | disappearing as quickly as they had appeared," Leins said. "If an | individual amassed enough power and wealth to extend his/her | influence, the striking and issuing of coins was one mechanism by | which they could further expand their influence." | | Yes, that's pretty much how it works. This is also how we know of | a couple of short lived rulers during the migration period after | Rome fell. Why is this science 'news'? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-10-29 23:00 UTC)