Like research into time travel! Genius! 
Although I gather from movies that going back in time just creates a parallel universe for us to appear in. Who knows what our past was really like, weāll just end up in a different one. 
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note the sarcasm. Note the profession.
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The Old Testament also, at least, defends the status quo of having slaves by suggesting how slaves should be treated.
All noted. I was trying to agree with you in a humorous way. Obviously failedā¦ sorry.
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Yeahā¦ no worries. Guess Iām just not in the mood. Itās been a depressing week.
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Well, like most of the rest of academia, itās become thoroughly politicized/leftist by now, so good riddance! /s
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yeah, itās probably in this book, along with a lot of other arrant nonsense.
like this?
And your point is?
fingers crossed that youāll finally have more than two our three words at a time to say about why you started this threadā¦
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My main objection is that these reconstructions are speculative. Very speculative. An emphasis on a polychromatic interpretation privileges imagination over the realā¦ What we have is polished marble, with scant hints of color.
Roman statuary may be merely a blank canvas for artistic masterpieces, but museums donāt collect blank canvases and ask experts to imagine and recreate the paintings that might have graced those canvases.
Mary Beard says that we donāt have enough information about technique,
My problems come with wondering how far we should imagine all Greek and Roman sculptures painted in this way. Or whether in the Roman world, at least, we should really be thinking of a more delicate colouring, not a garish smearing.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2007/12/were-ancient-st.html
As for leftist archeological theories, the real question is whether those theories are useful in the field, or whether they simply resurrect the corpses of red herrings. The political leanings of archaeologists are irrelevant-- as long as the artifacts are undamaged, and the digs well documented.
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Okay, thank you, but why do you equate mere speculation about polychromy with āpoliticizingā it?
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because it isnāt merely speculating about the artistic techniques used by the Romans, and the Greeks. It speculates about the political motivations of those who have expressed skepticism.
Want to change how Classical society is depicted in popular culture? Work for a game company.
live edits are fun.
I mean, sure, things like games and movies can be great ways to change how things are viewed. But it wouldnāt make sense to say that itās not something for museums. Theyāre not warehouses of uninterpreted artifacts, their job has always been to present artifacts in a way that allows them to be appreciated, as per our best understanding of them.
@gadgetgirl02 made a very good comparison with feathers on dinosaurs. Much of the public view of them was updated with the first Jurassic Park and stopped there. Like your suggestion, some people are trying to change that with projects like Saurian. But thatās still ongoing, and for now even people who have heard the idea arenāt used to it, and talk about dinosaurs being ruined somehow.
As a side note, you also get an odd sort of bargaining ā like maybe some little dinosaurs had feathers, but you donāt have to imagine them on Tyrannosaurus rex, do you? Itās hard to see any reason to suppose it lacks them, knowing now that close relatives like Yutyrannus were fuzzy, but weāre used to something else so people demand elevated evidence. Itās not my field, but at least some of the comments on the linked articles sure feel like this sort of special pleading for uncolored statues.
Anyway, itās plain museums definitely have a role in shaping how dinosaurs are portrayed. You could say the fossils should speak for themselves, but they never have; the scattered bones are assembled into skeletons, missing pieces are interpolated, and from the beginning there were always drawings or sculptures showing reconstructions. Yes, those are at best educated guesses, and should go with explanations of what we know and how much is speculative.
But it would be worse to have people unaware theropods should have feathers just because itās not certain how to arrange and color them. So they ask experts to imagine and recreate how they might have looked in life, as best they can. And Iāve seen the same done for other objects, like surviving metal bits of weapons, whenever the whole picture isnāt obvious to the casual viewer.
Why wouldnāt statues fall into the same category? Sure, the colors may be somewhat speculative, but if people see them thinking thatās the way they looked in ancient times and the evidence says otherwise, the museum is not doing a good job presenting them. Sticking to a definitely incomplete picture of the past in the hopes of it not politicizing things strikes me as exactly backwards.
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The difference with dinosaurs is that Dinosaurs are displayed as articulated skeletons, You have to imagine everything else. Feathers are sort of an layer of imagination on top With statues, itās more like-- Imagine thereās a left arm, and also, we suspect that it might be polychrome, somehow.
Itās also possible that people have adopted the rules of Neoclassicism (and there are rules) as a guide to how things should look, and how gentlemen should appreciate art and architecture. Neoclassicism was very much a reaction to the āexcessesā of the baroque and rococo periods. For roman architecture to actually follow some different set of ideals, well now.
On occasion, I visit the National Galley, and enjoy the statuary as art, not as historical pieces. Iād probably enjoy them less if they looked garish. Whereas, at the museum of natural history down the street, Iām looking for something rather different from the skeletons.
thatās quite recent, too
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Fair enough I suppose, though the operative word there is still covered. Itās very well-known Tyrannosaurus had scales, but the interesting question has always been how much, as after all even chickens have scales if you look at the right parts. Some people really love to go overboard and draw fuzzy tyrannosaurs, but from what Iāve seen the best guesses have been some mix of dorsal feathers with scales on the lower body and legs.
I was under the impression this new study didnāt really contradict that, so much as extrapolate from there being scales on much of the body. Looking closer I guess they do in fact have samples from near the back, which makes it a bit more reasonable to suppose no feathers instead of partial feathers. What burden of proof you put on those options depends on your assumptions, and my point was that people very often base those on tradition rather than what is now known, but it seems I have overstated the example.
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Not sure if someone brought it up before, but Iāve also heard the idea presented that the colors arenāt necessarily so garish. I donāt pretend to be an expert on the subject (I donāt think we have one here? I know Mindysan is a historian, but specializing in American iirc) but I heard it suggested that the statues may have been more subtle in their application, with more depth and variation than the paint by numbers you get when you just test a spot on the statue and go āYep, this had a pigment with x in itā there. Wish I could remember where I heard this fromā¦
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erm, itās all gone pear shaped.
This is sad. This is absurd, This is unconscionable.
