The more I’ve studied ancient history, the more firmly I’ve come to believe that anyone who studies an ancient civilisation should study the history and culture of its modern descendants, too. This is for three main reasons.
The first is simply a matter of respect. Many populations living in the same area as an illustrious ancient civilisation have been dismissed by Western scholars, and treated as if they know nothing and couldn’t have anything to bring to the table. Take the Greeks: a large number of 19th century scholars (and a significantly smaller and less vocal, but still tragically present number of modern scholars) were vested in portraying modern and ancient Greeks as different, and the modern population as degenerate and unworthy of their ancestors. This was used as a justification for looting Greek artefacts, and bringing them to more “civilised” Western countries where they would be properly taken care of. The same happened to many, if not all civilisations of the ancient Mediterranean. I think it’s important for academics to openly distance ourselves from this past, acknowledge the relationship between ancient and modern people, and value them equally instead of treating the latter as inferior.
This ties into the second reason, which is that modern populations often dohave something to bring to the table. They have a unique relationship with their surroundings, history and culture, that outsiders do not. An Italian person who has always lived in Italy knows its nature and climate, and will instinctively understand, for example, why a certain Roman deity was associated with a certain time of the year. An Egyptian person might still be cooking a variation of an ancient Egyptian dish. A Greek person was raised within the Greek mentality, and even though much has changed in the last two thousand years, bits of that mentality will still be recognisable to them in ancient texts. This is even true of areas with shifting populations and changing influences: I remember one of my lecturers, who grew up in Syria, pointing out a tradition in the Epic of Gilgamesh that his older relatives still uphold.
As said above, these people are often dismissed by academics as uneducated, biased, or not the genuine descendants of the ancient civilisation in question. I’m not saying modern locals can’tbe any of those things. But the knee-jerk reaction of rejecting allof them with no other justification than this stereotype is bad academia, full stop. At worst, their input is useless, but at best, it’s a valuable source that we are choosing to ignore.
And this is where the third reason comes in. Studying modern cultures and history enables us to recognise those biases. Academia does not exist in a vacuum; every academic, wherever they come from, is influenced by their cultural and historical background. Quite often, this can become political too. A North Macedonian scholar writing about whether ancient Macedonian was its own language or a dialect of Greek, or a Turkish scholar writing about the links between the Hittites and modern Turkish culture, may not be entirely objective - but you wouldn’t notice that without knowing about modern relations between Greece and North Macedonia, or the role of Hittitology in the creation of modern Turkey.
Learning about the people who live in the area you study, their culture and their history is recognising that everything, ancient and modern, is intertwined. Neither can be taken separately. Many of us who study history do so because of what it teaches us about the current world; but it won’t teach us much if we don’t know that world to begin with.
There is more nuance in this matter than this post seems to indicate.
First of all, a current nation whose ancestors occupied the lands of the previous civilization and committed atrocities against its inhabitants do not get as big of a say in the interpretation of the history or culture of said civilization.
Moreover, the current inhabitants of the geographic location of an ancient civilization might not always be direct successors not just in terms of nationality or ethnicity but also of timing as in how many centuries, if not millennia separate them. Even in the example of Turkey and Hittit Empire, there were at least two other civilizations that existed in Asia Minor before the foundation of Ottoman Empire. So an Italian or Greek whose ancestors migrated from Asia Minor to the current-day Greece or Italy will be more likely to have cultural heritage related to Hittites than a modern Turkish person.
And lastly, you shouldn’t forget that many current nations will deliberately falsify, erase or wrongfully claim the history and culture of previous civilizations or countries that existed in that same geographic area for various reasons, so any studies made in such countries about the histories of their predecessors need to be approached with extreme caution.
That last one is so relevant. History is complicated guys
It’s true that western academics get pretentious and dismiss natives input but like. Op seems to romanticize locals a lot. As an italian I wouldn’t understand shit about ancient roman dieties and times of the year if I didn’t study them. I dont have any special relation to the climate and nature of my country because I don’t get to experience it as much as op wants to make it seem - what I mean is that I come from a metropolitan area and dont spend much time… learning about this stuff. It depends on how much your family values its heritage, if that heritage is really that connected with something that goes that far back and so many other things that you can’t just lump together a group and romanticize their relationship with the place.
I can’t say my parents don’t value their roots. But they don’t know much about romans/ancient greeks, just some modern (mis)intepretations of the era so that they can go “oh look how cool we are we are directly related to Pythagoras” and like no. You may get input from locals but you need to look for those who are really connected to the place they’re in and you need to still remind yourself that they’re humans and they can be biased.
Time passes. Things changes. New people take over the place, and so on. You can’t say modern day Italy is comparable to the Roman Empire in that “it’s as important and cool as it was back then” no it’s not. And that’s ok. Saying that we are direct descendants of the Roman Empire is just nationalistic, gross and pre-fascist to some degree.
I get that to many, many places on earth nationalism is SO important since they have been colonized/manipulated until very very recently. But enabling that in history academics? Hm. Watch out, that’s all I can say. Romanticizing is not the same as being accurate.
I think folklore is useful, but definitely not a perfect picture into the past, so I think the OP DOES make a few good points despite the flawed thesis.
But fact the OP seems to buy into Greek and Bulgarian nationalist claims about Macedonians makes it a tad bit more sketchy, and I wish I knew of better posts out there on why Folklore studies are still relevant without erasing the fact a LOT has changed in these cultures the past few thousands of years.
ETA: I may have to write something myself eventually
ETA 2: Stimulants are kicking in, so yeah, the critical responses here are more correct than I’m giving credit already, and I feel the need to eventually write about the inevitable uncertainties in reconstructing Ancient Religions.
Buy into Greek and Bulgarian nationalist claims about Macedonians? Excuse me?
All the above is exactlywhat my third point in the original post was about. Knowing modern history, and dialoguing with people from the areas we study (in the case of Macedonia, this includes North Macedonians, Greeks, and Bulgarians alike) enables us to find out what their way of viewing things are - and that, in turn, enables us to recognise when they’re being biased. That’s the difference between romanticising local people as always knowing the truth, and listening to them with a critical ear. My point is not that Italians or Turks or Syrians always know better than anyone else and should be the authority on Romans or Hittites or Mesopotamians. My point is also not that modern states should necessarily be traced back to ancient civilisations (which is generally a dangerous ideology). My point is that we should give Italian, Turkish and Syrian academics a voice, because right now we’re not doing it enough, and then we should treat their theories like any other ones: critically.
Again: if academics don’t look into modern history and politics, they won’t notice when someone is spouting nationalistic claims. That’s bad. Historians need to be just as well-versed in recognising this are they are in reading Herodotos or translating Akkadian.
As for displaced populations - yes, I should’ve been more clear on those, and on the fact that not all modern populations are descended from ancient ones (and in various cases actually exterminated them). That’s also something that needs to be taken into account, and again, a reason ancient historians need to study the modern history of their area, because if they don’t, they won’t know that the population was displaced.
Trust me, I don’t buy into the idea that local people are all direct descendants of ancient ones and have magical understanding of Ancient Egyptian agriculture or Greek philosophy or who-knows-what. I know many modern people are disconnected from the history of their land, and I’m not advocating for academics to listen to random shepherds claiming that “[famous thing] totally originated here, by the way the person who discovered it was my own ancestor too”. I amsaying that there is such a thing as environment, which local people are familiar with (e.g. any New Zealander knows why possums are the devil), and culture, pieces of which may possibly have been preserved from ancient times (e.g. the village where my mother lives celebrates a festival with roots in the pre-Christian era). Again, all this needs to be studied critically and cross-checked for nationalistic bias. But it needs to be studied and that is a hill I will die on.
So, I’m basically going to be doing a GOT7 Harry Potter Au…sort of. It’s going to be a moodboard series. And each moodboard will come with its own…storyish…thing…attached with it. As this is a Markson blog it will obviously be a Markson centered fic, but the other members will be there too.
The first seven post will consist of each member and their Hogwarts profile. Sorting, wand, patronus, blah blah. You get it. I have Mark just about finished so that’ll be up relatively soon. In the meantime, if you have any requests for other stories, moodboards, fics, drabbles, scenarios, reactions, WHATEVER that involves Mark, Jackson, or both just let me know and I’ll do that as well.
I stopped watching The Good Doctor halfway through season 2 because it was boring, I started it again only because of Neil and Claire because apart from Melendaire and some little storyline I liked, I still didn’t enjoy the show how I did once.
I always shipped Melendaire since season 1, so I was over the moon because it seemed clear that they would have made them canon. Finally, after three years of waiting, I was getting my OTP together. I would have watched the next seasons just for them, no matter how boring they would have been, because I wanted to see them happy, their relationship grow, Claire getting the brilliant career she deserved and Neil finally becoming a father.
I was pretty sure they wouldn’t kill Neil because I really thought the showriters learned something about killing characters randomly just for the shock value from shows like Gray’s Anatomy, and more also, they couldn’t be so stupid to kill Neil the same episode he would have probably declared to Claire. Oh, I was wrong. I was so horribly wrong. It’s like the season 4 finale of The Magicians all over again, I feel the same betrayal as when they killed Quentin without even giving him the chance to reunite with Eliot one last time.
I still can’t understand how they thought this would have been a good idea. Not only killing half ship moments after making them canon is a d*ck move, but can we just talk about how they keep torturing Claire? Why making her fall in love for Neil and then denying her the chance to be happy? Why couldn’t we have a good interracial couple with an happy ending? That’s not funny if you don’t give the characters you torture some peace and happiness at some point, and I genuinely don’t understand what’s the problem with showrunners and poc women who wantsuccessful careers and healthy relationships.
Despite my own bad history with tv shows (especially with ABC’s ones) and disappointments, I still had faith. And I was disappointed once again. And I’m sorry because I loved this show, I loved the idea of a main character on the autistic spectrum, but honestly they took away the only big reason I still watched the show, so I think that my journey with TGD ends here with 3x19, not even with the season finale. It’s a pity, but I almost don’t have time to watch the shows I like, let alone shows who keeps disappointing me.
