For folks who wonder how life would have been in those times, or just romanticize transporting to some time in history, I would highly recommend The Source by James A Michener. It covers thousands of years through multiple fictional stories across time but located in a fictitious town in Israel. There's "paganism", fun engineering challenges solved, the crusades, rise of islam, famine, plagues etc. Highly rated book that I love.
Just want to jump in and show some appreciation for Michener’s historical fictions. The Source is great, and Hawaii is one of my all time favorite books.
I enjoyed visiting Herculaneum more than Pompei as it’s so much more complete. The added bonuses are how few people are there, how compact it is and how great the food is in surrounding streets.
We ate pizza in what may or may not have been someone’s front room while the chef argued with a neighbour and a car was stolen off the street in front of us. Very intense, very inexpensive and an excellent day out.
Visited this one in Sweden last summer: https://www.eketorpsborg.se/eketorp-fort/
Not everything was available/open due to Covid-19. But very interesting place from early Scandinavian iron age. (300 AD).
Another fun one is Jamtli [1] (Jämtlands läns folkhistoriska museet) in Östersund, which holds a museum and about ten acres of grounds with historical reconstructions of Swedish homes, farms, and businesses from roughly the 18th c. to the present day. Since 1986, actors have moved into the historical buildings every summer and recreated how people lived, worked and spoke in the past. [2] It's similar to colonial Williamsburg in the US but not focused on one particular point in time -- great fun!
Another really neat one is Ötzi-Dorf[1] in Austria, a recreation of an ancient village modeled after the items and equipment found on the body of Otzi the Iceman. Very cool to walk around.
I lived near Calafell for many years. I visited this site a few times, including once as part of a school trip. It does a good job at making what you have read in a textbook come to life, even for an area where ancient ruins are common. The article mentions Tarragona. Definitely visit Tarragona if you want to see very well conserved and documented ruins of a large Roman city.
> Red lines can be seen painted on the walls in the reconstructed village: These lines mark the line between the original ancient structures and the parts that have been rebuilt.
The red lines are pretty low on some of those tall walls. How do they know how high to reconstruct the wall? An educated guess, or is there some other evidence to point to how tall they were?
I don't have knowledge of this particular reconstruction, but it depends. Stone walls can often be reconstructed directly by taking a designated section of rubble and rebuilding the wall to see how high it is. Some walls in the original site may also have retained their original height depending on construction, environment, materials, etc. Everything else is about constraining the range of possibilities based on evidence. It takes a certain base width to support x height in the local soil, the wall had some human purpose and probably wasn't overly tall for that (height = $$$), etc.
All of this is to say that reconstructions are largely a series of educated guesses in most cases. That's generally fine as the goal isn't to be perfectly accurate, but instead to give tourists an engaging historical experience.
How can it be experienced authentically without the stink of human and animal waste flowing in the streets? Without the dread of disease hanging in the air. Without the threat of attack by the "foreigners" in the next valley.
I always like some good full restorations / recreations. Traveling in Europe right or wrong I got the impression that there were few of those than in the US (but that might just be anecdotal random chance).
But you would love having lots of children to play with, everybody is young, lots of food in front of the Mediterranean sea when it was not polluted nor crowded.
As an adult you would have lots of sex and live would be an adventure every day.
Not saying this article qualifies, but I hope everybody keeps in mind that pop sci reporting on pre-historic finds and archaeology is particularly bad in a lot of cases. We attach a lot of romanticism and supposition to scant data about our forbears, and that's reflected in the reporting.
[+] [-] silentsea90|5 years ago|reply
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12657.The_Source
[+] [-] eunoia|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diego_moita|5 years ago|reply
What makes it interesting is that it is much better preserved than Pompei (although it is smaller).
Fun fact: a big part of the restoration funding in Herculaneum came from David Packard, the "P" in HP computers.
[+] [-] lostlogin|5 years ago|reply
We ate pizza in what may or may not have been someone’s front room while the chef argued with a neighbour and a car was stolen off the street in front of us. Very intense, very inexpensive and an excellent day out.
[+] [-] BBergdahl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pigscantfly|5 years ago|reply
1. https://jamtli.com 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamtli
[+] [-] Arrath|5 years ago|reply
[1]https://www.oetzi-dorf.at/gb/
[+] [-] kiliancs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goda90|5 years ago|reply
The red lines are pretty low on some of those tall walls. How do they know how high to reconstruct the wall? An educated guess, or is there some other evidence to point to how tall they were?
[+] [-] AlotOfReading|5 years ago|reply
All of this is to say that reconstructions are largely a series of educated guesses in most cases. That's generally fine as the goal isn't to be perfectly accurate, but instead to give tourists an engaging historical experience.
[+] [-] rmah|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Isamu|5 years ago|reply
Wow, I would hate the dirty clothes, bad health care and being away from my phone.
But seriously, I really enjoy these historical re-creations, maybe I am in a minority.
[+] [-] duxup|5 years ago|reply
Granted, I did enjoy going to a concert at the theater at Orange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Theatre_of_Orange
[+] [-] bumbada|5 years ago|reply
As an adult you would have lots of sex and live would be an adventure every day.
[+] [-] ip26|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sillyquiet|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] finiteseries|5 years ago|reply
Researchers also use Twitter more and more, it’s not difficult to just skip the reporting entirely for the source in some areas!