Famed Roman statue 'not ancient'

[Philosophia]

Famed Roman statue 'not ancient'

A statue symbolising the mythical origins and power of Rome, long thought to have been made around 500BC, has been found to date from the 1200s.

The statue depicts a she-wolf suckling Remus and his twin brother Romulus - who is said to have founded Rome.

The statue of the wolf was carbon-dated last year, but the test results have only now been made public.

From here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7499469.stm).

Okay, this has surprised me. I always thought it was older than that but apparently it's not.

[TygerTyger]

That statue was the image that opened our studies on Rome at university, and I remember the Professor telling us how it was an Etruscan piece of work too!

Just goes to show that you can't trust everything that the learned teach you!

I suppose the authorities were reluctant to have this, and probably lots of other famous relics, tested due to the cultural as well as historical value that they have been imbued with.

There migth be a case for this being a copy of a much earlier piece of course, the Romans themselves were certainly masters at copying such works.

[Infinite Grey]

Just goes to show that you can't trust everything that the learned teach you!


No, it just goes to show that the Scientific Method works. Eventually (usually sooner than later) the truth is forced to the surface. This is why it is safe to trust what the learned teach you.

[SphinYote]

No, it just goes to show that the Scientific Method works. Eventually (usually sooner than later) the truth is forced to the surface. This is why it is safe to trust what the learned teach you.

The scientific method works...EVENTUALLY.

But the "learned" are human, prone to misinterpretation of data, just as anyone else is. That's exactly why they should not be trusted for everything.

Just think if the scientists today "trusted" the scientists of the past. Without questioning results, no progress would ever be made.

Yote

[Infinite Grey]

The scientific method works...EVENTUALLY.

But the "learned" are human, prone to misinterpretation of data, just as anyone else is. That's exactly why they should not be trusted for everything.

Just think if the scientists today "trusted" the scientists of the past. Without questioning results, no progress would ever be made.

Yote

Argh! Let me rephrase for the chronically anal. LAYMEN and STUDENTS should trust learned people - as they are not qualified to know different; if they wish to join the academic discussion, they should get learneded.

[SphinYote]

Argh! Let me rephrase for the chronically anal. LAYMEN and STUDENTS should trust learned people - as they are not qualified to know different; if they wish to join the academic discussion, they should get learneded.

:lol: Wondered if that would get a rise from you.

Very true to a point. But too often a field (or a particular question) is framed in such a narrow way that it takes someone outside the field, a nonspecialist, to see a pattern that people within a given fild of study have, through the way the feild/subject/question is taught, been conditioned not to see.

Hence the push, which i think is right now far too weak, for more interdisciplinary studies.

Focus has its advantages, but sometimes it gets taken too far, and sometimes it takes an outsider or child as it were to see that the emperor has no clothes.

And sometimes, like here, it just takes time for the field to advance enough to undo past errors.

My vote in this particular instance is that this is in all likelihood a copy, of something that no longer exists. Though scienifically speaking, that can't at this point be proven.

Yote

[Infinite Grey]

:lol: Wondered if that would get a rise from you.



Heheheheheheheeeee oh my intestines busted out of my body and sprayed across the room I was laughing so hard.