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February 15, 2005
Archaeology Explodes History, Confirms Myth
Well, that would be slightly more inflammatory than the Guardian's Palace find lends weight to myth, but not, on the whole, inaccurate. Of course folks who keep up are seldom TOO surprised by archaeology, but that's not the history people study in school. Most people are still cheerfully assured that the whole Romulus and Remus thing as a myth and/or legend. Now I'm not saying that I believe that Rhea Silvia was impregnated by Mars (princesses have been using that line to explain unwanted pregnancies for a long time) or that the she-wolf story is true, but I see no reason to practice the hermeneutic of suspicion to the degree that the 19th century found useful and which lingers -- oh, it lingers. There's nothing more depressing than the Zombie Errors of textbooks. As someone who specializes in the world before A.D. 1000 I have trained myself to insert "currently no excavated" between the "no" and "evidence" in "there is no evidence that. . . ."
There have been precious few new texts discovered since the late 18th century (you should have seen the interest on the list serves about an unpublished 5th/6th century Procopius of Gaza text and the doubts thereafter last month); what we've learned from archaeology in the last 100 years is still being digested -- even as more platesful of evidence are served forth.
Of course the evidence of the spade (and the dendrochronologist) must be evaluated critically, and the popular press isn't the place to do that -- but over and over again text-based histories written before archaeology are found wanting. I shudder when I think that Gibbon is still in print. Worse, his monument of great prose is available as an audiobook (no links. I HOPE you won't listen.).
Posted by CrankyProfessor at February 15, 2005 9:37 AM