What I would like to know is if tablets like this are being scanned digitally into three dimensions so that they can be reproduced. I feel like everything we find from antiquity needs to be scanned this way. With humans constantly going to war destroying history, I’d hate the idea of losing things like this forever.
UPDATE: And thus a journey down the interwebs rabbit hole begins. I need better internet and PC to check this out more later, but answering my own question, here’s the entrance to the rabbit hole should others wish to venture with a few examples:
- Smithsonian Institution: The Smithsonian has a vast collection of 3D scanned artifacts available online, including prehistoric tools and sculptures https://3d.si.edu/.
- Europeana: This digital platform features 3D scans of cultural heritage objects from across Europe https://pro.europeana.eu/project/3d-content-in-europeana.
- Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI): This non-profit organization promotes the use of 3D scanning for cultural heritage preservation https://www.culturalheritageimaging.org/.
Didn’t all kinds of antiquities get destroyed in Iraq? Totally irreplaceable stuff.
As you alluded, probably common in many places. How sad.
Most recently I remember it happening really really badly within Syria. Very intentional destruction. But yes, it happens all the time–Iraq included. With the technology we have now, we can preserve a lot of it (digitally at least).
I hate how it’s so damn hard to find these things and yet so easy to destroy it.
A lot was destroyed but a lot of it was looted and and sold to sleazy collectors. Remember when the guy who owns Hobby Lobby got caught buying looted artifacts?
Still horrible, obviously, but at least there’s some hope looted items will be recovered.
Yea ISIS and other extremist groups like to destroy evidence of their ancestor’s greatness for some reason.
Lesser sons of lesser sons
I recall there was at least one location which was 3D scanned and photographed in detail before ISIS destroyed it, so at least not all of it is lost.
https://apnews.com/general-news-travel-arts-and-entertainment-dbca5e23519f44c4a881c9cd69f41cd6
Oh man.
It’s only recently that the idea of “archaeology” has been a thing. Before then there were only “antiquarians” which were just looters.
Often they had royal backers. There’s a podcast series called “stuff the British stole”
There’s pretty well documented instances in the 1800s in Egypt, and pompeii.
Honestly the amount of amazing stuff that has just been “collected” is just eye watering.
There’s also the https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/about Obviously, losing a dimension isn’t great but still pretty cool
I knew Pythagoras was smart but I never knew he invented time travel. So cool!
I took the opposite tack.
You ain’t shit, Pythagoras! You just wrote it down, you didn’t figure it out, you absolute fucking fraud. We’re taking your immortality back!
Poor poor Plagiar, everything he invented people stole and took credit for.
This makes a strong case on the discovery side of the discovery vs. invention controversy.
Ironically, my dad idolized Pythagoras and the notion of discovering a scientific fundamental to be remembered for thousands of years, for which the secret is not to actually do science, but raise a cult of scientists who attribute their inventions to you. Like Thomas Edison.
Edison, Watson/Crick, Musk, Jobs…I hope today it’s much harder to get away with being an idea stealing tool bag since the internet has competent archivers, sans working under a company that owns anything you make.
As in turns out, Watson and Crick may not have actually stolen anything from Rosalind Franklin after all. If you’re interested, I found an article I read regarding it about a year back. A couple of researchers provide some interesting info and context that make the original data stealing narrative less certain.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rosalind-franklin-dna-structure-watson-crick
Not really. The Pythagorean theorem (or whomever you want to credit for it) assumes plane geometry. It’s not true in general.
Plane geometry is the invention that makes all of the math work. The earth is not a flat plane (not even close to flat pretty much anywhere). If you want to do Pythagorean-like calculations between cities on earth, for example, you’ll get a much more accurate result with spherical geometry operating on geodesics. Unfortunately, spherical triangles not obey the Pythagorean theorem!
Cool but is there a better source on this than “I fucking love science”?
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/jt.2009.16
This paper was sourced in the article
“Springer Science” (scientific journals and books) is not to be confused with “Axel Springer” (Bild, Welt, politico).
