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bn-l 3 days ago  [ - ]

There is an amazing bit in the fall of civs podcast of a Greek military leader’s account who over 2000 years ago is retreating from battle in Iraq and comes across an entire ancient city. He doesn’t know it but the ruins for him are already over a 1000 years old.

adolph 3 days ago  [ - ]

In addition to archeology, ancient Greeks (and undoubtably others) also did paleontology:

  Like their modern counterparts, the ancient fossil hunters collected and 
  measured impressive petrified remains and displayed them in temples and 
  museums; they attempted to reconstruct the appearance of these prehistoric 
  creatures and to explain their extinction. Long thought to be fantasy, the 
  remarkably detailed and perceptive Greek and Roman accounts of giant bone 
  finds were actually based on solid paleontological facts. By reading these 
  neglected narratives for the first time in the light of modern scientific 
  discoveries, Adrienne Mayor illuminates a lost world of ancient paleontology.
https://classics.stanford.edu/publications/first-fossil-hunt...
dr_dshiv 3 days ago  [ - ]

Was that Xenophon’s anabasis? I didn’t remember that part but I love the book.

Xenophon, like Plato, was a student of Socrates and wrote philosophical dialogues involving him. Unlike Plato, Xenophon became a mercenary soldier who led 10,000 Greek soldiers to fight their way out of Iraq. It’s very well written — hope they make a movie at some point.