Recent comments in /f/history

EinpixelHD t1_j4aurxc wrote

Reply to comment by oneplusetoipi in New archival findings on the earliest ownership of the Voynich Manuscript by stegu2

There have been many people that claimed they deciphered it, but so far every one of them turned out to be wrong. Theres also a lot of people claiming it to just be nonsense, but proving that is nearly impossible. Comparing the number/frequency/combinations of glyphs in the manuscript to real languages/alphabets shows that it behaves very similar to natural languages in many ways which would indicate it to be a code or cypher, but it also significantly differs from how natural languages behave in many other ways, so its very difficult to say if its a code or not.

The most important step to deciphering it would be to figure out what language it is in, but afaik there hasnt been a conclusion reached in regards to that.

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marketrent OP t1_j4a0vd9 wrote

Reply to ‘When something like this comes up where we’re both excited, but also that sorrowful that we lost so much.’ — A Māori tribe in New Zealand is calling for the return of treasured artefacts listed for sale by the auction house Sotheby’s by marketrent

Excerpt:

>Ngārimu Blair, deputy chair for Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei people, said the tribe had only a handful of significant artefacts left, after most were lost in successive waves of looting by early “treasure hunters”, urbanisation and displacement.

>“We have so very few of these taonga and treasures left in our possession,” he said. “When something like this comes up where we’re both excited, but also that sorrowful that we lost so much.”

>The Sotheby’s auctions, which close in a week, include a carved pounamu (greenstone) club, or “mere”. It was originally given by Ngāti Whātua chief Pāora Tūhaere to a British vice-admiral in 1886, on condition it remained in the man’s family, according to a newspaper report at the time.

>As the mere has now passed out of the family’s hands it should be returned, Blair said, and the tribe hoped a future buyer would consider repatriating it.

>“We hope those involved in this auction understand Tūhaere’s people are not extinct nor relics, and we are inextricably linked still to this taonga,” he said.

> 

>Other New Zealand artefacts being sold by Sotheby’s this week include a Tewhatewha staff, and the remains of extremely rare New Zealand birds – the leg bones of the now-extinct four-metre (12ft) tall moa, and a brooch made from the beak of a huia, a wattlebird believed to be extinct since 1907.

>Sotheby’s has sold a number of high-value Māori artefacts, including some of unknown provenance. In 2019, an Arawa tekoteko carving sold for US$740,000 (£‎608,000). The auction description noted that it was “a major Māori sculpture” but said it had “no remaining trace of its original provenance”.

>In 2014, the sale of a carving valued at NZ$3.1m caused controversy in New Zealand, with academics and tribal authorities calling for the government to work for its return.

>The auction comes as international museums, governments and private collectors wrestle with the question of ownership of Indigenous artefacts – particularly those obtained through colonisation, looting or war.

Tess McClure in Auckland, 12 Jan. 2023.

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HawkeyeTen t1_j49rk9r wrote

Reply to comment by big_sugi in Contemporary Reactions to Colonialism by J1m1983

Interestingly though, there WERE concerns in President James K. Polk's administration about how Europeans and others might view the end result of the Mexican-American War in 1848. It's part of the reason the captured lands (California, Arizona, Nevada, etc.) were technically purchased from Mexico rather than simply snatched and annexed. I'm not sure why they feared the Europeans would be angry about it a ton, unless: 1. It would in their view upset the balance of power in the world or 2. It would make America look like a hypocrite for practicing methods similar to European empires against fellow "New World" countries. It unquestionably helped lower anger and tensions between the US and Mexico though after the war though (since the lands technically were not stolen).

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HawkeyeTen t1_j49q58x wrote

Reply to comment by FriendoftheDork in Contemporary Reactions to Colonialism by J1m1983

The Congo Free State is a definite example of a case where even European empires were disgusted by abuse of conquered peoples. Beyond George Washington Williams, Joseph Conrad and Mark Twain, legendary British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote an account of the atrocities in his work The Crime of The Congo, calling them some of the worst abuses he had ever heard being committed on human beings up to that time. The only reason the Congo evils were forgotten by many is due to World War I. Until 1914, Belgium was MASSIVELY tarnished in image (since it was THEIR king after all who had overseen this), and from reports I've read some abuses continued for a year or more after the Belgian government took over in 1908. It is sad though that discussion on the treatment of ruled peoples under imperialism (and how other nations should respond) didn't start a whole lot until this debacle, with the Ottoman atrocities of Greeks among others in the 19th Century possibly being one exception.

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JovahkiinVIII t1_j49bvff wrote

Reply to comment by Mr_Blu_Sq in Conservation of Spanish Armada invasion maps reveals red ink details were added hundreds of years later by ArtOak

I guess there’s also the line between when is something a historical artifact as opposed to just a text with information. Nowadays we digitize everything, and have copies of copies of stuff. In the 19th century they could definitely mass produce books, but still a book was where legitimate data was stored. If you find that an old text is fading or otherwise is seen as needing clarity, it might not be seen as very crazy to just update your stuff.

Not that I like it. But I wonder how different the perspective was of the guy who did it

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