I can’t help but feel this is one of those things where we had actual documents saying “it was done with this and this”, and some old rich white guys looked at it and went “oh mirth, the ancients were so silly. They probably wrote this basic stuff down and the actual builders had Secret Techniques we need to Discover”
For a long time, archeologists didn’t know how greek women did their high-piled braids and hair. There was a word that translated to “needle” in the descriptions. They went, “seems like we’ll never know.” Then a hairdresser took a fucking needle (big needle) and did the fucking thing you do with needles, which is sew – and by sewing the braids into place, she replicated ancient styles.
The Egyptians had diagrams of construction steps for their pyramids. Archeologists went “oooh, ancient primitive people, how they do this?” LITERALLY MYTHBUSTERS OR THE OLD DISCOVERY CHANNEL or someone went “what if we did the thing the pictures said they did” AND GUESS FUCKING WHAT. GUESS FUCKING WHAT.
Also that thing with native Americans saying squirrels taught them how to get sap for maple syrup, and colonizers going “that’s a myth sweaty”
Sincerely, if the scientists had to do actual analysis like spectroscopy or whatever, kudos, and no flame. But swear to god, if all these years, we’ve had the recipes and there was just this fuckin institutional bias against just TRYING THE THING THEY SAID WOULD WORK, HELLFIRE AND DEMENTIA.
In this case, it was more they had roman writings saying what went into it but figured there was some secret because when they followed roman recipes it never turned out quite right.
Because the sources left by Romans always just said to mix with water. Because, if you were a Roman??? Obviously you knew that you used seawater for cement. Duh. That’s so obvious that they never really bothered specifying that you use seawater to mix it, because it wasn’t necessary, everyone knew that.
But then the empire fell, other empires rose and fell, time passed, and by the time we were trying to reconstruct the formula the ‘mix the dry ingredients with seawater’ trick had been forgotten, until chemical analysis finally figured it out again.
It’s sort of like the land of Punt, a ally of Egypt that’s mentioned all the time, but we don’t actually know where it was located. Because it isn’t written down anywhere. Why would they write it down? It’s Punt. Everyone knew where Punt was back then. It’d be ridiculous to waste the ink and space to specify where it was, every child knows about Punt.
3000 years later and we have no damned clue where it was, simply because at the time it was so blindingly obvious that it was never written down.
So moral of story is be specific
I was thinking it was stupid that they didn’t specify seawater but then I had the thought that we don’t specify to use chicken eggs in baking because DUH so we just write eggs
2000 years in the future people are going to be making scrambled fish eggs and crying bc the ancient recipes make no sense
i love telling ppl i plan to marry rich and it’s not shallow bc i’m a lesbian so any way i get married is still iconic and revolutionary
us gays and trans ppl get 500 years of trope free passes where we can do anything and tell any story that is trite and boring with straight cis people.
every single chick flick, romcom, and action movie in existence can be rewritten featuring us and it’ll be an instant classic, oscar winner, nobel peace prize nominee, that’s just the rules
I realize I’m 2 years late to this, but I’m just now digging in and trying to understand the full effects of Brexit, and it’s truly astonishing. I knew it would have the usual protectionist effects like higher prices and whatnot, but there’s a not improbable chance Britain runs out of food. They’re scrambling to make sure planes will still have access to the country. Important scientific research is stalling because British scientists can’t secure funding. And I’m still not sure what the argument for it is except something about regulations and telling your Polish maid she’s not wanted.
““Hamilton” may be coming to movie theaters, exactly as audiences saw it on Broadway. Hollywood studios are currently bidding for the big-screen rights to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical about founding father Alexander Hamilton, according to people involved in sales talks. But in an unusual twist, the “Hamilton” movie won’t be a filmed adaptation. Instead, it is a recording of the show made in 2016 with its original cast, including Mr. Miranda in the lead role. The world-wide theatrical rights for “Hamilton” could sell for more than $50 million, two of the people with knowledge of the deal talks said. Representatives for the production have recently screened the recording for interested buyers. A spokesman for Mr. Miranda didn’t respond to a request for comment. […] Netflix Inc. recently bought the rights to stream a recorded version of Bruce Springsteen’s one-man Broadway show for more than $20 million, said people with knowledge of that deal. It is also a potential bidder for “Hamilton,” one of those people said. If the subscription-video company is successful, the show would likely play in few, if any, theaters. Sellers are asking that the “Hamilton” recording not play in theaters, or stream, until 2020 or 2021, some of the people close to the deal talks said, giving the show at least two more years during which it can only be seen on stage. The recording of “Hamilton” was made over two nights in New York and is an exact replica of the Broadway production, including an intermission, said one of the people who has seen it.”
Spock and Jim: endless flirting and pining. Long chess games where they stare into each other’s eyes. Cheesy smiles whenever they see each other. Soft looks and touches. Audible relief whenever one of them is finally safe. Never actually confessing or saying I love you to each other.
Bones, who has to watch five goddamn years of this: I’m a doctor not a relationship therapist will you just kiss already I stg-
failed2be-chill 