Sean Jones KCWalking round the Duomo I was struck again by something that I used to think about when I was digging Roman sites in Colchester - what really touches us from across the intervening centuries is not the magnificence of the structures, but the hand-scratched graffiti. /1
Of course, Dante’s poetry is sublime, but there is even greater joy in rummaging in the footnotes to understand his score-settling and indulgence in grudges. /2
I love the old photos of my family, but I always find myself looking in the background for a glimpse of the old cars, the vanished shops. Holiday snaps designed to capture a grand building are now more interesting for the fashions on display on those walking past it.
It dawns on me, in horror, that if I were alive 200 years from now, I’d be fascinated by archives of Twitter.
Oliver Mantell@SeanJones I agree with all of this thread except for the bit about Dante… ;o)
I had a similar reflection at a historic cave recently, where my father was (rightly) complaining about people who had carved their names in it (‘JB + KC 2023’ type stuff) - but I contrasted it with the interest of the same types of carving from 1847… (etc)
BashStKid@SeanJones
I like that sort of thing too, as nobody tries to make a narrative from the ephemera around them, it’s just there, unedited wider context for whatever the framing and original meaning was supposed to be.
Without being too McLuhan about it, maybe Twitter and other digital remnants won’t be like that - all that will be left are the final edited highlights, with more hostile deletions than Pravda.
@BashStKid That does sound likely
SamuelJohnson@SeanJones Now imagine just how scared the Chinese workers who made the terracotta warriors were.
AFAIK, although their fingerprints survive, not a single inscription has been found inside any broken statues. Yes, they may have been illiterate but you'd think some bathroom wall type iconography, at least, might have been possible and appropriate. Unlikely if the penalty was severe?
@samueljohnson good point. I’d never thought about that