> Roman Egypt preserves a much larger slice of our evidence than any other place in the ancient world. This comes down to climate (as do most things); Egypt is a climatically extreme place. On the one hand, most of the country is desert and here I mean hard desert, with absolutely minuscule amounts of precipitation. On the other hand, the Nile River creates a fertile, at points almost lush, band cutting through the country running to the coast. The change between these two environments is extremely stark [...]
> That in turn matters because while Egypt was hardly the only arid region Rome controlled, it was the only place you were likely to find very many large settlements and lots of people living in such close proximity to such extremely arid environments (other large North African settlements tend to be coastal). And that in turn matters for preservation.
yep, the worlds oldest shirt was found in an ancient rubbish pile in eygypt, nice shirt, but obviosly thrown out from ancient wear and tear.....it NEVER rains in eygypt...or to be exact any area can expect rain once in 400 years or something ludicrous, so ya stuff just sits, and in just the right conditions lasts for millenia, so we have ancient chit chat letters sent back and forth between women that represent the earliest first person dialogs in existance
edit, on reflection there are older summerian letters sent back and forth by traders in....cloth, who had a "shop" in one city/country but the main production was in mesoptsmia proper, and if memory serves the distant trader was a woman asking for more products to sell, and again other chit chat, but both instances required exceptional conditions and the use of very durable materials, papyrus paper and dried and protected clay
> it NEVER rains in eygypt...or to be exact any area can expect rain once in 400 years or something ludicrous,
The northern part of the country receives some rainfall in the winter. heavy winter rains occasionally cause flooding in Cairo, Ptolemaic Egypt was centered around Alexandria, which gets the most rain in the country - about 200 mm (7.87 in) annually. while that's still relatively low, it's not nearly as extreme as you make it seem.
Great context, but in reminding me of Bob Dylan’s Rainy Day Women #12 & 35, potentially many conversations from even those most auspicious regions went unpreserved.
I wonder how authentic the hat must be after restoration? And how exactly restoration is done ? It seems restoration had to be funded so must be some elaborate process.
One thing I've learned is that in all of the brief history of humans we're aware of, people a lot smarter than I am existed in fairly large numbers. It puts things into perspective. They would have learned to use hacker news and program computers as easily as I do. We stand on the shoulders of giants.
I love the perspective they had on things due to living in such different (yet remarkably similar) conditions.
I think we forget we're the "same" (more or less) homo sapiens as 200+ thousand years ago. Better overall conditions allow us to use the brain more (books, universities, etc) but our brain hasn't changed, as far as I know.
"What the ancient Romans wore may not be among the most pressing questions facing archaeologists, but it is one that attracts interest among the general public."
So it lasted about 2k years where it was, then was removed, put in storage and damaged by moths in the museum?
> Roman Egypt preserves a much larger slice of our evidence than any other place in the ancient world. This comes down to climate (as do most things); Egypt is a climatically extreme place. On the one hand, most of the country is desert and here I mean hard desert, with absolutely minuscule amounts of precipitation. On the other hand, the Nile River creates a fertile, at points almost lush, band cutting through the country running to the coast. The change between these two environments is extremely stark [...]
> That in turn matters because while Egypt was hardly the only arid region Rome controlled, it was the only place you were likely to find very many large settlements and lots of people living in such close proximity to such extremely arid environments (other large North African settlements tend to be coastal). And that in turn matters for preservation.
https://acoup.blog/2022/12/02/collections-why-roman-egypt-wa...
yep, the worlds oldest shirt was found in an ancient rubbish pile in eygypt, nice shirt, but obviosly thrown out from ancient wear and tear.....it NEVER rains in eygypt...or to be exact any area can expect rain once in 400 years or something ludicrous, so ya stuff just sits, and in just the right conditions lasts for millenia, so we have ancient chit chat letters sent back and forth between women that represent the earliest first person dialogs in existance
edit, on reflection there are older summerian letters sent back and forth by traders in....cloth, who had a "shop" in one city/country but the main production was in mesoptsmia proper, and if memory serves the distant trader was a woman asking for more products to sell, and again other chit chat, but both instances required exceptional conditions and the use of very durable materials, papyrus paper and dried and protected clay
> it NEVER rains in eygypt...or to be exact any area can expect rain once in 400 years or something ludicrous,
The northern part of the country receives some rainfall in the winter. heavy winter rains occasionally cause flooding in Cairo, Ptolemaic Egypt was centered around Alexandria, which gets the most rain in the country - about 200 mm (7.87 in) annually. while that's still relatively low, it's not nearly as extreme as you make it seem.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Egypt#Rainfall
We're never going to let Ea-nasir live this down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-n%C4%81...
He was complaining to "Lord Bezos," about receiving sub-standard material.
I'll just get my coat...
> but both instances required exceptional conditions and the use of very durable materials, papyrus paper and dried and protected clay
Note that papyrus is not a "very durable material"; it's an extremely fragile one.
Papyrus records survive in Egypt, and only in Egypt, because nothing ever spoils in Egypt no matter how fragile it might be.
Cuneiform records survive all over the cuneiform-using world because they are very durable if you set fire to them.
Great context, but in reminding me of Bob Dylan’s Rainy Day Women #12 & 35, potentially many conversations from even those most auspicious regions went unpreserved.
I wonder how authentic the hat must be after restoration? And how exactly restoration is done ? It seems restoration had to be funded so must be some elaborate process.
The hat of Theseus
Pileus (plis) can be found amongst older Albanians (especially on the north) to this day.
> As it turns out, even the Romans understood the power of a good hat.
The author thinks Roman had low intellect or something?
Most people think ancient people were idiots. Romans could have invented steam engines if they wanted to.
One thing I've learned is that in all of the brief history of humans we're aware of, people a lot smarter than I am existed in fairly large numbers. It puts things into perspective. They would have learned to use hacker news and program computers as easily as I do. We stand on the shoulders of giants.
I love the perspective they had on things due to living in such different (yet remarkably similar) conditions.
100% agreed with you.
I think we forget we're the "same" (more or less) homo sapiens as 200+ thousand years ago. Better overall conditions allow us to use the brain more (books, universities, etc) but our brain hasn't changed, as far as I know.
It looks like a bucket hat.
Bucket hats are pretty useful as far as hats go. Glad to see they have a long standing heritage!
There’s a joke about Oasis in there somewhere.
Just waiting for some tech bros to add ai and re-invent the bucket hat with a new private equity funded company.
Google Hat, the coming successor to Google Glass.
“Designed by AI”
You can pay with bitcoin and the ai design a unique hat for you and then you get a complementary nft and you can chat to llm about it
"What the ancient Romans wore may not be among the most pressing questions facing archaeologists, but it is one that attracts interest among the general public."
Such a snobby comment!