Some New Reading Material

[4est_4est_Gump]

Researchers have found a key that may unlock the only library of classical antiquity to survive along with its documents, raising at least a possibility of recovering vanished works of ancient Greek and Roman authors such as the lost books of Livy’s history of Rome.

The library is that of a villa in Herculaneum, a town that was destroyed in A.D. 79 by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that obliterated nearby Pompeii. Though Pompeii was engulfed by lava, a mix of superhot gases and ash swept over Herculaneum, preserving the documents in a grand villa that probably belonged to the family of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, the father-in-law of Julius Caesar.

...

Researchers led by Vito Mocella, of the Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems in Naples, Italy, now say that for the first time, they can read letters inside the scrolls without unrolling them. Using a laserlike beam of X-rays from the European Synchrotron in Grenoble, France, they were able to pick up the very slight contrast between the carbonized papyrus fibers and the ancient ink, soot-based and also made of carbon.

The contrast has allowed them to recognize individual Greek letters from the interior of the roll, Dr. Mocella’s team reported on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. “At least we know there are techniques able to read inside the papyri, finally,” Dr. Mocella said in an interview. His team is considering several ways to refine the power of their technique.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/s...ing-contents-of-herculaneum-scrolls.html?_r=1

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I wonder if they had any pR0n???


I guess it was all drawn on the walls as graffiti.


"Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Why, yes, if memory serves, they did, indeed have what they would consider "art."

 

[Wat_Tyler]

http://thefeedingtube.com/media/1/20100303-sammy-braddy-topless-6.jpg

Really? You don't say . . . .​

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

You take your baggage everywhere, don't you...

 

[Wat_Tyler]

http://your-daily-girl.com/galleries/4/braddy-bim/sammy025_large.jpg

Call me a bag??????​

 

[oggbashan]

I wonder if they had any pR0n???


I guess it was all drawn on the walls as graffiti.


"Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."

They had plenty of porn. The Emperor Tiberius was supposed to have the world's largest library of porn.

Unfortunately, Christian fanatics destroyed many pornographic writings during the first millenium.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

They had plenty of porn. The Emperor Tiberius was supposed to have the world's largest library of porn.

Unfortunately, Christian fanatics destroyed many pornographic writings during the first millenium.

It was rhetorical.


Pssst, bewbs:

http://www.phun.org/specials/sammy_braddy/sammy_braddy_24.jpg

 

[oggbashan]

It was rhetorical.


Pssst, bewbs:

I know. An irony is that phallic symbols, common in Roman towns and cities as a good luck charm, were destroyed in Christian countries and left alone in Muslim countries e.g. North Africa. An erect stone penis on every street corner was supposed to promote prosperity...

So that's where we went wrong. We need Priapus presiding over Wall Street.

http://www.christies.com/lotfinderimages/d14039/d1403973r.jpg

These are lamps in the shape of Priapus. So that's where the burning sensation starts:

http://holeinthedonut.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Naples-National-Museum-of-Archeology-Erotic-Art.jpg

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I know. An irony is that phallic symbols, common in Roman towns and cities as a good luck charm, were destroyed in Christian countries and left alone in Muslim countries e.g. North Africa. An erect stone penis on every street corner was supposed to promote prosperity...

So that's where we went wrong. We need Priapus presiding over Wall Street.

http://www.christies.com/lotfinderimages/d14039/d1403973r.jpg

These are lamps in the shape of Priapus. So that's where the burning sensation starts:

http://holeinthedonut.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Naples-National-Museum-of-Archeology-Erotic-Art.jpg

"Erect" the statues high enough and the turgid tumescences would be great for affixing the hanging ropes for the local politicians.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

A team of researchers made a surprising find when examining a papyrus-wrapped mummy mask -- they found what they believe to be the oldest-known copy of a gospel in existence. The researchers found a fragment of the Gospel of Mark that dates back to about 90 A.D., Live Science reports. Previously, the oldest surviving copies of Biblical gospel texts date back to 101 to 200 A.D.

The text was written on a papyrus sheet that was later reused for the mummy mask. While the stereotypical image of ancient mummies involves bejeweled golden masks, that level of finery was only reserved for the wealthy. The mummy mask for the average person would have been made out of recycled material like papyrus, according to SmithsonianMag.com.

In order to retrieve the text without damaging it, the research team applied a method of ungluing the papyrus without obscuring the paper’s ink. About three-dozen researchers are using this technique to analyze hundreds of texts from mummy masks.

“We’re recovering ancient documents from the first, second and third centuries,” Craig Evans, a professor of New Testament studies at Acadia Divinity College in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, told Live Science.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/01/22/mummy-mask-papyrus-may-reveal-oldest-known-gospel/