01-27-2010, 11:48 AM
Quote:only the original words (as far as we know them) have any credibility. ... Anything extra is just the individual translator's spin.Exactly, and well-phrased.
The point is, of course, that it is impossible to be both an archaeologist and a classicist. One of the examples of the interconnectedness of all disciplines is that the dating of the second, and main, wave of Greek immigrants into Catalonia is based on a story by Herodotus, who says that the Ionian Greeks settled in the West after the Persian conquest of Lydia. This is commonly dated to 547 BC, which is based on an erroneous reading of a cuneiform tablet that has not been noticed because it lies hidden in the appendix to a book. I have discussed it here.
So, a Catalonian archaeologist should not only understand Herodotus, but also understand the publishing habits of cuneiform scholars. This is, of course, impossible, but the example is not unique. This means that scholars will always make mistakes. The only solutions I can think of is that they need to collaborate more closely and must keep their mouth shut about subjects that are not their direct specialism. There's more about it here.
