Pompeii Pottery May Rewrite History

ABC Net ^ | 11-8-2004 | Heather Catchpole

[blam]

GGG Ping.

[Graymatter]

Makes sense. The archaeologists are not looking at the good china.

[HitmanLV]

Here in Las Vegas yesterday I was at the Venitian and had the chance to see a tv show as part of audience research.

It's cool - they give you popcorn and stuff like mugs, t-shirts, anywhere from $2 to $15, etc, for about an hour of your time to sit there, watch the show, rate the content by a dial 'boring to interesting,' and answer some questions.

Anyway yesterday I saw a show called 'Supervolcano,' from the looks of it to be seen on Discovery channel. It was a new idea they have - dramatazations of disasters etc peppered with a lot of scientific info, a new 'dramatic' way to do a documentary, I guess.

It was hideously bad - about the volcano under old faithful erupting and causing the end of the world. Just poorly done.

Anyway, they ran a trailer for a show, "Pompeii: The Last Day' based on some new info and research. It was a drama also but it looked AWESOME! I was bummed that they didn't show us that, instead!

Keep an eye out on cable for the 'Pompeii' special!

[blam]

"Keep an eye out on cable for the 'Pompeii' special!"

Thanks, I will. I'm more interested in super-volcanos though.

[farmfriend]

ping

[HitmanLV]

I have seen documentaries on Super Volcanos in the past and share your interest (I think I also read something in Natural History magazine, I think, a couple of years ago).

It;s just that the production stunk - it was an odd way to do a drama-documentary. The acting wasn't good, and it just wasn't compelling.

Keep an eye out for both, though, and I hope you enjoy them!

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks blam. Sounds like the alleged scientists involved are just getting started and wanna grab some headlines and some grants. All over the ancient world, fine ceramics typically were made locally, because they had a poor markup for their weight (ships were not as large as today's, although some were a lot bigger than we might think) and a lot of breakage in transport. Amphorae were roughly made jars used to ship olive oil, wine, and a variety of other things, but were not a cargo in and of themselves. Among other things found at Pompeii is an ivory figurine of a god, from India (all, see the "Tamil Trade" topic under the GGG keyword). One of the farms buried by the same eruption made liquamen for export as well as the local market. Garum (what we would call a name brand of liquamen; the name is analogous to "Kleenex" or "Xerox" or "Frigidaire") containers from Italy have been found all over the empire. If someone did a dig in my house (and believe me, it ain't that farfetched) they'd find many things made perhaps just a few dozen miles from here, as well as from around the country, or around the world, and the only foreign country I've ever visited is Canada.

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[SunkenCiv]

Another thing that bothers me about this -- the Romans (and even the Etruscans) had a lot of sculpture that was knocked off from Greek originals. Sooo, the styles were imported (of the dishes and other stuff) via the importation of craftsmen, or via the copying of a single example that was imported.

[Carry_Okie]

I do a variety of archaeology at my house. There's an old garbage pile at the bottom of a drainage that silted up over the years. I deflect winter runoff through it in various ways to expose the stuff. It's mostly bottles from the '40s so far, but the place has been occupied for about 100 years, so I'm hoping for more interesting stuff as the pile wears down.

[r9etb]

"Heather Catchpole"

A name for the ages....

Cute, too....

[Socratic]

"Keep an eye out on cable for the 'Pompeii' special!"

Will do. Thanks.

[Ptarmigan]

Doesn't surprise me about Pompeii doing trade with Eastern Roman empire and North Africa.

[SunkenCiv]

Hey, you've just described my living room. ;') On a lesser note, my mom had some old cans and bottles with various paints and so forth. We took them over to the waste handling shack the county maintains out there. I pulled two of them out -- one was an old-fashioned brown glass "Roman Cleanser" gallon jug, with (I think) turpentine inside, the other a Listerine bottle with (perhaps) really old Listerine inside. Those old bottles are cool (not just due to their scarcity), with those raised letters. That kind of thing is mostly unheard of today, except perhaps for $5 - $6 jars of spaghettis sauce or somethin'.

[SunkenCiv]

Oooh. Don't tell her what I've said about her...

[SunkenCiv]

Tamil Trade
INTAMM ^ | 1997 | Xavier S. Thani Nayagam
Posted on 09/11/2004 8:07:01 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1213591/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Just updating the GGG information, not sending a general distribution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[pbear8]

I've never seen TV folks anytime I've been to the V, and I've been several times. Where do they hang out?

[HitmanLV]

Here in Las Vegas, there are three (almost) full time tv/movie marketing research facilities.

One is at The Venetian - when wandering around the Grand Canal Shops level, there is a booth in the hallway near the small oxygen bar, that leads to the food court. There are usually 2 or so staff members flagging people down to sign up for the marketing research.

Sign up at the booth in that hallway and they take you upstairs in an elevator right by the small oxygen bar. They give you all the popcorn you can eat and $5-10 for tv commercials/sitcoms and $ 10-20 for tv and theatrical movies. Then you give your opinion of what you just watched. If they like you, they may ask you to be in a focus group and you can make $ 30-40 for about 45mins to an hour of your time.

Another is at The Aladdin - There are two entrances into The Desert Passage stores. Enter the southernmost entrance and go down that hallway - about 200' in there is the marketing research booth and center. Usually they have folks flag people down by the outside on the Strip by the southernmost entrance. Same drill - $ 5-20 for anywhere from 30 mins to 2 hours of your time. I saw the pilot movie to 'Eureka' here, and also the pilot to a really bad Howie Mandel sitcom that was very derivative of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.' No popcorn here, though.

Another locale is at the MGM Grand - go into the MGM Grand Studio Walk (a collection of shops) and walk all the way down by the entrance to the MGM Grand's pool. There is a facility run by Paramount to test all its stuff: Nickelodeon, Paramount, UPN, shows and tv movies, and theatrical films (I think). No money there - just coupons for $5 or so at the food court and Paramount store. I saw the pilot episode of 'Kevin Hill' there and ripped it to shreds. The suits didn't listen to me and OKed the series, and it was a flop and was canceled!

[pbear8]

Wow, that's detailed. We didn't walk through the Canal last month, but I know exactly where you are talking about. Sounds like a cheap date, my husband would like that.