The ways we have edited history
I have literally had to explain to visitors in work that yes, old civilisations did things we can't do/explain today. (there are some EPIC examples of this, including explaining that the Egyptians used the Nile to transport stone from quarries to Giza, and being told the Nile is too far from Giza for that, to which I said 'have you looked at it on a map' and they huffed and defended, and didn't look at a map).
I almost laughed reading a book that declared the first successful caesarian was done in 19th century, and that all before were normally done after the mother had died, or had terrible odds of the mother surviving, and they certainly wouldn't have had any more children.
Seriously, the telling of history, or should I say the editing of history by historians, is painful at times.
Humans have been building ocean worthy boats for millenia. Heated floors, sewers and flushing toilets used to be a thing in a lot of civilisations across the world. Medical care used to be better than it is now (in western europe, aka the place things are compared to now, things went hard downhill c the 1400s and didn't really get any better for a long long time :/) - for some reason we think modern western technology and religion are the best and only thing things to judge things by, and it's semi hilarious.
Every time a historian reads something and goes 'heh they couldn't have done that, they must have meant this other thing' it sets common undertanding back. The number of written records of women doing things, of the existence of LBGT+ people, of decent medical care, that gets edited by historians (typically white european) is soooo painful.
But you know, people in the past were primitive and worse off then us. :/
-
And in unrelated news, I am getting fed up of playing phone tag with the vets. (Dog had tests done, and they rang when I was at work and said 'nothing to worry about but...' and have spent three days trying to catch them o.O
This entry was originally posted at https://weaselett.dreamwidth.org/206642.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I almost laughed reading a book that declared the first successful caesarian was done in 19th century, and that all before were normally done after the mother had died, or had terrible odds of the mother surviving, and they certainly wouldn't have had any more children.
Seriously, the telling of history, or should I say the editing of history by historians, is painful at times.
Humans have been building ocean worthy boats for millenia. Heated floors, sewers and flushing toilets used to be a thing in a lot of civilisations across the world. Medical care used to be better than it is now (in western europe, aka the place things are compared to now, things went hard downhill c the 1400s and didn't really get any better for a long long time :/) - for some reason we think modern western technology and religion are the best and only thing things to judge things by, and it's semi hilarious.
Every time a historian reads something and goes 'heh they couldn't have done that, they must have meant this other thing' it sets common undertanding back. The number of written records of women doing things, of the existence of LBGT+ people, of decent medical care, that gets edited by historians (typically white european) is soooo painful.
But you know, people in the past were primitive and worse off then us. :/
-
And in unrelated news, I am getting fed up of playing phone tag with the vets. (Dog had tests done, and they rang when I was at work and said 'nothing to worry about but...' and have spent three days trying to catch them o.O
This entry was originally posted at https://weaselett.dreamwidth.org/206642.html. Please comment there using OpenID.