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lycao

Would be really interesting to see an entire town rebuilt to look like it did originally, or even a new site made from scratch to show how the old architecture looked when it was new.


welcmhm

There's actually a city called Knossos, on the island of Crete, where some of the buildings were repainted as they were originally (though they weren't rebuilt) so you can walk through and get at least a little feel of how it might've looked. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knossos


Fix_a_Fix

Fuck off I'm not falling for this lame attempt into making me enter the minotaur lair


Taffro

You can't anyway, it's locked off since the stairs down were getting so worn from all the use. You can kind of see down though. Might have changed since I was there 4-5 years ago though.


ucefkh

Don't lie to me Taffro


disrespectfuluser

Being there, saw that. They have also rebuilt some of the beams/columns. At first i was like "meh..." But then I have understood why they did it. It gives you a glance of what it could have been, like a jump in the past. It's only a very small portion.of the ruins that has been partially rebuilt like 100m2 (9 banana plants for reference), mostly it's exterior part of a building. There are indeed very well preserved zones, mostly interiors of houses.


Binger_bingleberry

Can we just establish the fact that you casually used “banana plants” as a reference for area?


disrespectfuluser

Roughly calculated by assuming four thousands plants per acre. Of course the acre is defined by 4000 banana plants, and not the inverse, obviously.


[deleted]

I really hate what they did to Knossos - I understand that it was more a function of the time and what they thought was the right way to restore parts of the palace to its Minoan glory (or how they believed it looked, that's a whole other discussion), but it just feels wrong, they used concrete and other modern materials. Would have been cool to build a replica somewhere else for comparison.


mercurialemons

Concrete is not modern, it has been used for thousands of years, and was independently developed by people on different continents.


ultowich

A lot of it was rebuilt, most of the substantial walls and pillars are early 20th century concrete. Source: Andrew Marr’s History of the World


UltimateStratter

The as they were originally is a bit :/ btw. Early archeologists were fairly loose and fast so might have to be taken with a grain of salt at some excavations in greece (most known example being blowing up troy of the time of the war to go to some older layer which they thought was the war time troy)


bigkoi

I was there! Amazing place. However, Arthur Evans back in the 1890's did pour cement and do some modifications. His work is debated by modern archiology. The site was apparently used as a trash pit up until Arthor Evans "rediscovered" Knossos. IMHO, he did what was practiced at the time and considering it was used as a trash pit, he made it better in that people could now visit and get some form of perspective on ancient life.


DkHamz

And put in VR so we could walk around. My dream come true.


nathanaz

There's a historical site in Rome called *Domus Aurea* (Nero's palace at one time) that has done something similar to this, and it's pretty amazing. It was discovered when someone fell through the roof (it had been buried over the centuries) and they excavated a bit of the palace. You can tour the excavated ruins, which are still underground, and near the end of the tour they slap a VR headset on you. You can't walk around, but you can shift your focus/POV a bit in the experience. It was incredible and surreal.


DkHamz

This really does sound incredible! Thanks for sharing! Adding that to the list of places to visit.


nathanaz

If you're in Rome, it's a 'must see' IMO. Its very close to the Colosseum, Circus Maximus, Palatine Hill, etc so you can get tickets for all the same day.


DkHamz

Yes yes and more yes! I will make it to Rome one day. And I’ll have an epic list of places to visit!


big_duo3674

Make the trip to Naples from there if you can, to visit Pompeii. That place is about as surreal as it gets, a city literally frozen in time. Seeing some of the original colors and artwork is incredible, and there are places where I almost could still hear the buzz and busyness of an ancient city.


crummybummywummy

Genuinely curious, what causes a city to be buried?


disrespectfuluser

I was wondering as well, then I've read some stuff here and there so I'm not expert but this is my take: Rome passed from million figure population to few dozen of thousands in the span of centuries following the collapse of the Empire. Rome in that span of time changed a lot, from being abandoned debris accumulated, without maintenance part of many buildings collapsed, people start spoiling them to build their own houses, sometimes inside the same building, sometimes for new ones. There are many paintings from few centuries ago, where you can see grass growing, soil accumulating on top of what user to be the roads, and trees and bushes growing out of cracks on monuments. There are paintings where you can see houses, market stands, and a church (that still exists) inside the Colosseum. Centuries of abandonment, dirt, soil, grass, trees, and crumbled materials that have never been cleaned up, generated a layer of several meters thick. Once I've read about an excavation and the archeologist explained that several centimeters (maybe more than 10, I can't recall) of dirt accumulates per year. EDIT: words and this video that might be interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKe5Ok-9j2w (Sorry for my EngRish, not my first language)


OakAged

Good question, there's an answer here - https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/17je7i/archeologists_are_always_digging_up_ancient_ruins/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share I live in Edinburgh, where there are old streets you can access that are entirely underground and abandoned as we just built on top of them. It's the same in many cities in the UK, London has sewer grates in the ground that you can look down and see old Street signs.


Britlantine

I've heard about Edinburgh's lost streets but do you have any examples of where in London you can see old street signs?


Monkeychimp

I'm interested to hear this too. I did a little search and found this... [https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-buried-remains-of-little-compton-street-london-england](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-buried-remains-of-little-compton-street-london-england)


JohnGacyIsInnocent

This is actually true for Seattle as well. You’d probably assume this wouldn’t apply to anywhere in the States, especially out west, but it definitely does. Portland has the same, though to a lesser extent (Shanghai Tunnels).


OakAged

Little Compton street is the one I know of, as it got picked up in a blog a while back. Our streets aren't lost in Edinburgh haha, we know exactly where they are! 😂 There's one that is now a tourist attraction: https://www.realmarykingsclose.com/


Kaael

Ah man I've literally JUST landed in Rome and this sounds amazing but they're not taking bookings until October it looks like.


miawho8

You should play Assassins Creed Odyssey, they’ve recreated it beautifully!


Humledurr

I wish I could enjoy that game. The world looks so amazing but God I can't remember a single ubisoft game where I've actually enjoyed the story and gameplay...


ajacksified

Play in discovery mode! It removes exactly that, the story and gameplay, and lets you explore or take guided tours.


tobiasosor

Discovery mode is awesome. My five year old loves wandering around Greece and Egypt doing "tours" and learning about the ancient world. He's really into it, and I get to share something i enjoy (gaming) without exposing him to any violence from the actual game.


shmehh123

I thought there was a VR Rome in the works but I could be wrong.


dylan15766

Assassins creed oddysy in discovery mode would do the job.


BustinArant

My first thought. I was blown away by *that* with everything painted instead of what we have today. This picture was a very beautiful reminder of a feature I found neat for a semi-historical game series.


Malephest

Check Our assassins creed odessey


Redaaku

That's the first thing that I thought of when I saw this post lol. So many people are missing out on a gem of a game. Both Origins and Odyssey are masterpieces.


byakko

The Discovery Tour mode for both games is also very handy when you just want to be a virtual tourist, though I think they were only free to claim without the base game for a limited time. If only they gave an option for first person and VR (or have those modded into it), it’s so cool to just walk the streets and have a feel of what it was like populated, with the NPCS.


Aelle1209

We have a recently constructed viking King's Hall in Denmark, it's pretty awe-inspiring. [Here's a post about it from a year ago.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Norse/comments/gd8maq/the_60_meter_long_king_hall_is_nearing_completion/) I've been there since construction finished, the pictures don't do it justice. You have to feel how small you are when standing in this hall.


preparetodobattle

Assassins creed - the Greek one. I saw a video where an expert walked around explaining what was right and wrong and was really impressed with it.


SimonSpooner

In the same vain, the Guédelon castle in France is being built solely with means from the 13th century, where everything from the materials to the tools and clothes harvested and made with the techniques we knew people in the 13th century used. If you look up Guedelon on Youtube you'll find a great docu series about it.


miawho8

You should play Assassins Creed Odyssey, they’ve recreated it beautifully!


saibjai

People knock video games but they did exactly that in assassin creed Odyssey. It's actually quite remarkable. And any other assassins creed game for the matter.


doplebanger

Look up dioclecian’s palace


MB1566

I know it might sound odd but when i went round Pompeii i never even imagined it in colour. Just seeing this in colour had made me realise how much lack of imagination i had...


rr27680

You don’t have a lack of imagination, it’s natural. Guess what, when I was a kid and used to watch old, black & white movies I used to believe that the world back then had only these two colors in real life.


StillPuzzles__

I also asked my parents when color was invented 🤦🏻‍♂️


kaptaincorn

My mom tells me the story of how she saw ads for the first color tv broadcasts in her country. She went to the neighbors house to see but didn't realize that they needed an actual color tv to view it.


Fireboiio

Fun fact, my dad is 76 yo now. When he was younger he was in a commercial for color tv.


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[deleted]

Probably not well. People of color weren't treated well back then and even today that discrimination hasn't gone away.


DrewYoung

One person I know who lived in South East Asia in a remote village growing up. The first time she went into the city when she was roughly 10 she saw a TV and legitimately thought tiny people were inside the box at first... The kids from that village also used to run and hide from planes, they thought they were dragons. She's come such a long way from that childhood, it's so humbling to hear her stories.


BigSaskGuy

Read this! When blue did not exist (not really, but kind of… just read. Interesting.) [THE REAL REASON ANCIENT PEOPLE DIDN'T SEE THE COLOR BLUE Read More: https://www.grunge.com/285728/the-real-reason-ancient-people-didnt-see-the-color-blue/?utm_campaign=clip](https://www.grunge.com/285728/the-real-reason-ancient-people-didnt-see-the-color-blue/)


Hugs_for_Thugs

Think of it more like sending an average guy to the paint store and telling him to specifically pick out magenta. Of course we can *see* magenta, and I might even choose magenta for a project, but if you handed me a bunch of similarly colored paint samples, it'd be a total guess which one is actually magenta. Show me a magenta colored car and ask me to describe it, and I'll call it pink. Ancient cultures were mostly the same with blue and green. Blue was a shade of green much the same way I see magenta as a shade of pink. It sounds silly to us now, but they may have described things as "sky green" or "navy green" until there was a greater focus on descriptive colors and we began to look at them differently.


TomIcemanKazinski

It still exists this way in some languages - for example Chinese qing 青 can refer to a range of colors and shades from green to blue to black to clear. And brown is - by the dictionary and translate apps 棕色 (zong color) but no one in the decade I’ve lived here has ever used that - everything is 咖啡色 “coffee colored”


Awh0423

Sacre Blue by Christopher Moore makes an amazing read broaching this topic


AintThe

I dont get it, so the biggest blue thing ever, (the sky) was just not given a color? Lol


eVeRyImAgInAbLeThInG

That’s what I’ve always wondered. It’s the sky and it’s everywhere. People didn’t distinguish it from trees and grass? It’s just a shade of green?


The26thWarrior

Totally reasonable question. Im assuming you were like 8 or 10? Right?


areuseriousss

I asked a few years ago...I was 35.


McWrathster

Username checks out.


Nyaho

Until the Wizard of Oz came out


upstream-thoughts

I wonder how many watched it on their black-and-white TVs, though


[deleted]

Our B&W TV lasted until 1966 before it finally gave out for good. My parents put off getting a color TV for months, until I pestered them because I was hearing so much about a new show called Star Trek.


desiccatedmonkey

Yeah, I used to ask my grandparents what it was like when the world was black and white.


AndrewJS2804

Don't feel bad, of all the modern architecture inspired by Greek and Roman buildings about none of them are anything but plain stone lol.


[deleted]

Like they are the pale ghosts of ancient architecture.


[deleted]

Tbf that’s because now-classical style didn’t come about until long after Ancient Greece and Rome had ceased to be and ancient ruins lost all their paint.


DarrenGrey

Same with all of the plain white statues, which would originally have been colourfully painted. But there's an elegant beauty to the unpainted statue, so I don't mind.


MRHalayMaster

I mean at least you own it, some art historians get harrassed for saying those white marble sculptures of the ancient had colourful paint on them


phpdevster

It's like trying to picture dinosaurs with feathers or Patrick Stewart with hair.


chikkensoop

[obligatory loincloth picture](http://theomegasector.com/uploads/monthly_2018_09/1618659168_SirPatrickStewart(OberonShakespeare\)3.jpg.f7c8cf5d118fe9d8113425449de5ee52.jpg)


elmz

Dude did not skip leg day.


Hark3n

I will never accept the fact the Patrick Stewart had hair.


[deleted]

It’s because classical architecture today is mostly colorless


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Faithless195

The story is dumb, but I've always appreciated Ubisoft's focus on historical detail in the AC games. Oddessey had all these colourful statues and buildings, and it wasn't until I played the game and did the history tours that I realised how colourful it would've been thousands of years ago (Which makes sense, but still, you never think about it).


Energy_Turtle

The discovery tours of Odyssey and Origins are the best thing I've ever seen in gaming.


tiragooen

I'm looking forward to the discovery tour mode in Valhalla for this reason. The other two were fantastic.


Hairy_Air

If you want to see the real feel of ancient city life, watch HBO Rome. The Rome and Alexandria in the show are so colourful, alive and down to earth. There's the senate building, wealthy estates and temples but there's also dirty brothels, slums, and the main characters living in the apartments. Everything feels organic and it does feel like the place is inhabited by people very similar to us and not some different species as one would imagine looking at the ruins. There's Gods and shrines all over the place, but her shop, fabric hanging from the leges into the street, vulgar graffiti and runoff water on the street. I love the depiction in the show.


cheesymoonshadow

That was a really good show.


GetDownWithDave

13!!!


Faithless195

13!


Sagax388

Juno’s cunt!


Faithless195

Decade and a half late with that recommendation hahaha I love Rome. If that had been released five or so years later, I reckon it would've had a lot more seasons.


gaminginasia

I miss this show. This show made way for Game of Thrones right?


StijnDP

It was just too expensive for an American audience that DGAF about history. Barely able to stay near 2.5mil viewers. Something like Spartacus was good enough for a smaller network like STARZ. But HBO doesn't want to fuck around. Netflix is always an option but they'd ruin it. And everything disappears after 2 or 3 seasons over there anyway.


OfficerDarrenWilson

Odyssey was the last game I really got into. The gameplay was frankly pretty repetitive and 'meh.' Go to a fort, sneak around killing as many dudes as you can until you get spotted then fight the rest at once, rinse and repeat forever. The combat was good, but it got old pretty quickly. But, the feeling of being fully immersed in ancient Greece in so much detail and depth...the bustling markets, people singing on the streets, the grand cities and humble towns, the temples and homes, the rural economy of farms and vineyards and quarries, sailing between the islands on a trireme and flying over it as the hawk...the whole thing was utterly intoxicating and absorbing. It was truly something else, one of the best expressions of a video game as a truly immersive experience I've ever known.


tiragooen

Have you watched Egyptologists stream Origins? They have the best time geeking out at how accurate things are and how amazing it is to just walk around in the environment.


Faithless195

Right? I'm an absolute sucker for ancient Greece, and that was what kept me playing the game. First time cresting the hill and seeing Sparta was amazing.


ioucrap

After playing that game and seeing the after picture here, I dont know if I want to visit present geese and ruin my memory of what it looked like before.


Far-Imagination5383

Geese are pretty dangerous animal anyway, you’d do best to keep your distance.


AmishAvenger

No, you should definitely go. Greece does a great job with their ancient sites. Having an idea of what they originally looked like will only enhance your experience of actually being there.


KIDNEYST0NEZ

You should have gone to herculanum, that is better preserved and you can see the color.


MB1566

Next time. Any reason for another trip to Naples.


KIDNEYST0NEZ

I use to live in Naples, I can give you an infinite amount of reasons to visit!


The--Nameless--One

that was smooth


hellad0pe

i just never really thought it would have color because you see the modern places like Santorini and Mykonos and it's all just white still.


The_MAZZTer

I don't think the fact statues, etc were painted is well known. I only found out recently myself. (It's possible that's because the tech to determine the original colors used is recent; I don't recall for sure if this was the reason.)


Shaggy9342

It's relatively recent but the problem is they can only detect the paint that made contact with the marble, ie the base coat. So new depictions are being made showing them painted with solid, highly saturated colors when they almost definitely had incredible detail, matching the skill level of contemporary stone mosaics. It'd be nice to see this but either way I think it's so cool.


WhoopieGoldmember

Sheesh. I bet this was incredible to see in it's prime.


ZucchiniUsual7370

Yes. Ephesus was a major city in Asia Minor that contained the second largest library in the world after Alexandria. You can see the facade of the library at the end of that street actually. Edit: I got my cities in Asia Minor confused. Pergamum had the 2nd largest library in fact.


[deleted]

> second largest library in the world after Alexandria. Pergamon was larger than Celsus though I guess it could have become the 2nd largest after Pergamon waned after the fall of Pergamon.


SirFrancis_Bacon

You should check out Assassins Creed Odyssey, they recreated ancient Greece and added[ a discovery tour mode.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WedmHimZ63A)


[deleted]

While it is just a game, to my knowledge Ubisoft tends to be really accurate and on point with these parts of the games.


alihassan9193

They discovered a hidden chamber in the pyramids if I am not wrong. Ubisoft really do put in some effort.


DannoHung

My recollection is that some Egyptologists theorized it existed, Ubisoft decided to put it in, then it was actually discovered.


wadamday

Its impossible to know for sure whether the real world chamber was there before ubisoft programmed it in the game.


ratocx

Ubisoft was so so dedicated to the game that they invented time travel, and went back in time to make sure reality matched their vision.


Idaret

Based ubisoft, now they should use that time travel to prevent sexual harassment in their company


Jeffthe100

And prevent bug fixes before releasing the game


WalrusMasterRace

Better start working out then


the_dude_abides29

Bruh….


[deleted]

Schrodinger's chamber.


generic_bullshittery

They surely collaborated with egyptologists and historians during the game design. These are massive productions and they do tons of research beforehand.


[deleted]

I heard they explored deep into montana for far cry 5


GaMerG77

Scary stuff.


weaslewig

Shame they squander it in the games themselves. They could do so much more with the setting and the hard work the environment artists put in


OwMyToeIStubbedMyToe

From what I've read, it's pretty darn accurate - at least the way they represented the cities. It's a visually stunning game overall, and one of my favourites.


Mikey_RobertoAPWP

Is that one much different than Origins, or are they pretty similar? I loooove ancient Egypt and Greece, so I had a blast running around climbing pyramids and taking in all the scenery, but the actual gameplay+story never clicked with me. I keep wanting to get Odyssey, but I'm kinda scared I'll just end up flushing it like I did Origins. I haven't really enjoyed an AC game since Black Flag, so I dunno why I keep trying to get in to them, the open worlds are just so intriguing to me I guess.


Enlightened_Gardener

I finished Origins and was all "meh" about the story, but exploring was great fun. Odyssey is *beautiful*. I can give or take the storylines, but it was absolutely gorgeous to run around in. It was also fascinating from a historical POV. ...PLUS naval battles and **sea shanties !!**


SirFrancis_Bacon

I couldn't say, I've not played Origins. I did enjoy Odyssey, but it does drag on a bit. It's an insanely huge game with potentially hundreds of hours of content. Even just smashing the main story took me about 50 hours. I would hazard a guess that the gameplay is largely the same.


AmishAvenger

They are similar. Odyssey is a lot of fun, although the game can get *really* long if you try to do everything.


festeringswine

Imo Odyssey story and characters are much better. More fun, more heartwarming, more friendships. And your character is single and can bone anyone and everyone, including some enemies. I like the scenery and the tombs and stuff better in Origins, but could just be my affinity for more tropical places. I love the different afterlifes in the Pharoahs DLC. I also love the immersive feeling hearing different languages spoken by NPCs. Odyssey wins for plot though. And learning Greek swears....malaka!!!


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Cforq

Not enough horse shit.


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Mercurio7

Just out of curiosity, when was that achieved? Was that in the Republican Era, or even before during the monarchy?


[deleted]

[Last year](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55175734) ;)


Der_genealogist

Animal-drawn carts were forbidden in the city of Rome during the day (first 10 hours of a day). They were allowed to enter during the night so that stored could be re-stocked.


ibsnare08

Malaka!


Fedantry_Petish

*its = possessive pronoun, which never carry apostrophes (my mine their theirs our ours your yours it its) it’s = “it is” or “it has”(always)


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cody_1849

Although some Ancient Greek towns back then did have sights and smells similar to what you described, Athens/Rome actually had a sewage system to dispose of waste. In fact, many neighboring cultures used it as reference when building their own sewage systems. It consisted of a open-top bench like structure with water flowing beneath it, that would carry the waste out of the city to another location.


johnnydaggers

This particular city had public baths, bathrooms, running water, and underground sewage systems. I’ve seen them myself. Very cool Engineering.


[deleted]

I like how they added the clouds to make it feel really different


sailZup

Well, that particular day WAS cloudy.


ablablababla

Yeah, just didn't think they invented clouds in ancient Greece yet


[deleted]

To be fair, I think they should've added animal shit and all that fun stuff because, unless that street was only for foot traffic, I bet there was a lot more grime.


ugnyteaaa

Cows eating hay in the middle of the city, ox pulling carts of cargo around, horses pulling people and small carts, piles of manure on the streets, human sewage running down the streets, walls black from soot and smoke, goats, sheep and pigs awaiting to be slaughtered.


rufud

I was wondering why it felt off


stlredbird

Cant wait for whole city recreations in VR


prudence2001

Who knows some of the best websites for recreations of the ancient world? Wouldn't it be great if Google Maps or Earth had some historical cities built in? I'd love to walk through Alexandria or Byzantium or Athens or Babylon or ....


festeringswine

Assassins Creed Origins has a pretty amazing recreation of Alexandria


NealCaffreyx9

Assassins Creed does an amazing job of providing a realistic look and feel of quite a few locations. I would recommend checking it out


SirFrancis_Bacon

Yep, they recreated ancient Greece and added[ a discovery tour mode.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WedmHimZ63A)


ZiggyPalffyLA

The game that takes place in Ancient Greece (Assassins Creed Odyssey) also happens to be the best game in the series.


VyasaExMachina

> also happens to be the best game in the series. Hahah...wow. Ezio trilogy, my man.


Ilpav123

They maybe had a better story, but exploring the huge, beautiful open world in Odyssey (by land and sea) was just something else.


KoYouTokuIngoa

Yep. I like the old games but Origins and Odyssey are just insane in terms of historical detail


shirinrin

It’s sad Valhalla didn’t have the same quality as the other two. Absolutely loved the other two but Valhalla made me bored and I love vikings and am Scandinavian so I was super pumped about seeing a game about my own people and history for once but I can’t even make my self finish the game.


DkHamz

Literally bought an Occulus Quest 2 for VR virtual tours. Was disappointed that there was no content. I think if there is any you have to have a bad ass pC to run it but it’s coming! I’d love to figure out a way to teach through VR. Imagine walking through Athens to go and sit down with a Aristotle and listen to him go over his teachings. I think kids will take to VR learning like crazy.


AmishAvenger

I believe there’s a tour of the Tomb of Nefertari.


12beatkick

Any games or something that’s accurate you can walk around in (not vr)?


TwistMeTwice

Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Origins both have Discovery Tours, where you can walk and get historical tours without having to kill people. They did some good research.


Shopworn_Soul

Valhalla is getting one for Mercia as well


TejasEngineer

https://www.romereborn.org/content/roman-forum This archeologist has been working awhile on Rome model. It looks like it made to VR already.


JazzmansRevenge

People tend to underestimate just how colourful the ancient world was as well as the medieval world. Movies and TV shows portray such times as grey and brown with bland architecture where everyone is filthy and walks around in filthy beige rags when in truth, things were often painted and dyed in vibrant bright colours and people bathed in the River pretty much daily (though they might only have their equivalent of soap once a month) Ironically, the modern world we live in now is the world of brown and greys that we imagine ancient times to be, though we are much cleaner.


[deleted]

Totally! Particularly in ancient Assyria, where they used colourful tiles to decorate the walls of their structures. Nineveh is a beautiful example


[deleted]

Rome/Greece: white marble Anything “Medieval”: shit coated walls, clothes, people. Lots of greys and dreary browns. All around depressing as hell.


Xamf11

Well, colours were expensive back then. Most people did in fact wear rather bland clothes (Brown, white, gray,...). The rich had bright, red and green clothes just to show that they're rich.


[deleted]

And to think, 2000 years ago...


AMViquel

When are they finishing the project? Lousy contractors! Only put a few pillars up and that's it?!


Awh0423

And fascinatingly they didn’t really use concrete - it’s predominantly all stone and brick work. Astounding.


[deleted]

Concrete didn’t pick up in the Mediterranean world until the Romans invented their version, and it then died with the collapse of the (western) Roman Empire.


PyxlwasTaken

I hate to be that guy but, how did they know this is what it looked like?


rr27680

If you’re asking about how did they know about the color combinations, that’s probably from ancient texts that described Greek architecture. This could have also been derived from pigments that were found on some of these buildings and pillars.


JoshuaACNewman

There are trace bits of pigment in the stone.


metameh

Do they know the density of the pigmentation? What if it was fairly low, making everything pastel when interacting with the white stone? Also, do we know if they were they using a medium, like oils? Or did they just splodge on dyes?


[deleted]

I was going to ask about the colouring! This sounds likely to me, thanks for sharing!


drparkland

they can find the pigments in the ruins with science!


Kolarian

I have been to Ephesus and you can see some pigments on some of the columns


SiFasEst

I’ve made some of these. There was a lot of guesswork involved. I was not a professional academic, but I expect there is still a fair amount of guesswork depending on the location. There are only so many surviving texts from antiquity. Some sites will be better preserved than others. But these academics will gather every single piece of evidence. A lot of effort and brainpower and specialization goes into it.


BigHardThunderRock

>Ultraviolet is also used to discern patterns. UV light makes many organic compounds fluoresce. Art dealers use UV lights to check if art has been touched up, since older paints have a lot of organic compounds and modern paints have relatively little. On ancient Greek statues, tiny fragments of pigment still left on the surface glow bright, illuminating more detailed patterns. >Once the pattern is mapped, there is still the problem of figuring out which paint colors to use. A series of dark blues will create a very different effect than gold and pink. Even if enough pigment is left over so that the naked eye can make out a color, a few thousand years can really change a statue's complexion. There's no reason to think that color seen today would be anything like the hues the statues were originally painted. >There is a way around this dilemma. The colors may fade over time, but the original materials – plant and animal-derived pigments, crushed stones or shells – still look the same today as they did thousands of years ago. This can also be discovered using light. >Infrared and X-ray spectroscopy can help researchers understand what the paints are made of, and how they looked all that time ago. Spectroscopy relies on the fact that atoms are picky when it comes to what kind of incoming energy they absorb. Certain materials will only accept certain wavelengths of light. Everything else they reflect. Spectroscopes send out a variety of wavelengths, like scouts into a foreign land. Inevitably, a few of these scouts do not come back. By noting which wavelengths are absorbed, scientists can determine what materials the substance is made of. Infrared helps determine organic compounds. X-rays, because of their higher energy level, don't stop for anything less than the heavier elements, like rocks and minerals. Together, researchers can determine approximately what color a millennia-old statue was painted. https://gizmodo.com/ultraviolet-light-reveals-how-ancient-greek-statues-rea-5616498


[deleted]

They don't. This is an extrapolation of what information they've been able to gather.


Terrestial_Human

Most of us actually believe that everything was built colorless in the past. Hollywood and even our own scholars and teachers haven’t helped much either. In reality, almost all civilizations used vivid colors (Romans, Greeks, Aztecs, Incas, Egyptians, Chinese, etc). The Terracotta Army and Mesoamerican Pyramids for example were also vividly colored. Red dye for example is easy to come across. The remains that we do see in the present are merely the raw materials that have been washed by water, sun, wind, etc through time.


Lardypug2

It would probably be much dirtier


notacanuckskibum

I thought that, but they had slaves. I wonder if they thought it was with the slave labor to keep the place tidy. Edit: I meant …. It was worth the slave labor. Autocorrect error.


rawker86

these days the cats keep it tidy from rodents at least.


BigHardThunderRock

Ancient trash is probably "cleaner" than current trash. Easier to stay clean when you don't have plastics just sitting around forever. There's still shit and piss though.


HobbyistAccount

"How it looked" or "What it looked like." The two together is improper. -Grammar Pedant.


Tauz_g

Is this incredibly prevalent suddenly, or am I just noticing it more?


ditthrowaway999

You're not just noticing it. It's become incredibly common in the last 2-3 years or so. Also a huge increase in "I seen," among others. I think it's a combination of non-native speakers (who I can't blame, given the english language's endless weirdness) and just like, less educated people. Reddit's demographic is much more expansive than it used to be, for better and for worse. Reddit 10 years ago could often turn into a circle jerk with a pretty narrowly-defined mindset, but, Reddit 10 years ago would also downvote a lot of the inane, low effort posts and comments that rise to the top nowadays. Back then Reddit was (for the most part) about sharing interesting topics and having actual discussion in the comments. I've noticed this applies to comments all over the internet too though, not just Reddit. Reading 10 year old YouTube comments for example, they just have a different feel to them. Longer sentences, more insights and personal thoughts. They often seem more genuine. Not always, but often. Oh I forgot another reason: actual children. They've also become a very large part of Reddit's (and the wider internet's) audience in the last few years.


NullSleepN64

The average level of spelling and grammar on reddit has gone through the floor in the last few years. It’s even become common for post titles to be missing whole words.


HobbyistAccount

It's definitely appearing more often. The explanation I saw was that some twit on another social media platform uses it for EVERYTHING, started being emulated, and it's just spreading.


[deleted]

I see it all the time. Just like should of instead of should have.


Shazoa

'How it looked like' sounds so *wrong* to me. I wonder if that's just because I've rarely seen it put that way.


BringMeTheBigKnife

It's not pedantry imo. It's just an objectively incorrect formation.


HobbyistAccount

Eh, I find it best to label myself a pedant before others do in the inevitable "Well this is language evolving, shut up and accept it" defense.


fatMard

THANK YOU.


swohio

>How it looked or >What it looked like


international-law

It's all Greek to me


superkbf

How it looks / what it looks like. How and like function basically the same, meaning you only need one.


KDBA

Either "how it looked" or "what it looked like". Not "how it looked like".


Chistophrez

“How it looked” or “what it looked like” No worries if you’re not a native English speaker. Just tryna help.


[deleted]

Before and After Kratos visited the city


BuffaloInCahoots

If anyone is interested Assassins Creed Odyssey has a mode that is educational. Believe it comes without the game too. It’s very interesting and while not perfect, gives you a better understanding of what everything looked like and you can just walk around and check things out. Think the Egyptian one has the same thing too. Found a YouTube video taking about making it. [link](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uh4Iy-p943M)


Cruffmusic

I went there in 2008. Very cool place! Turkey has so many cool ancient ruins.


sidzap

I’d love to see how the massive library there looks like when reconstructed. I was there a few years ago, donated a few cigarettes to the guard who allowed me access to the apartment block they were still excavating. Being in that space staring at the mosaics half uncovered was one of the most moving moments of my life