Remains of an ancient Greek structure found in Croatia | Hacker News Reader

Remains of an ancient Greek structure found in Croatia

arkeonews.net

110 pointstaubek29 comments

Except, the structure isn't 3500 years old. The find is no doubt interesting but the Greeks did not start their colonization until almost 1000 years later, as the actual article text explains. The settlement might be 3500 years old, but the Greeks (who build the structure) came much later.

The editorialized title here makes an already sensationalist heading just - incorrect.

Yeah it's very confusing. The original article[1] (Croat here) actually only mentions strata going into different periods, not exact years of age. It shows the area has been settled through the prehistory, helenistic and roman periods, and into the medieval period.

1. https://min-kulture.gov.hr/vijesti-8/u-stobrecu-otkriveni-na...

The settlement as a whole is described as 3,500 years old.

The Greek bit is described as: "The project uncovered a massive Greek rampart, a type of defensive wall, from at least 2,000 years ago."

The title is: "Remains of a 3,500-year-old Settlement and Massive Ancient Greek Structure found in Croatia"

There are far too many capital letters, a missing "a" and some odd hyphens are sprinkled with gay abandon but that's fine. The intent is clear from the title and it is not inconsistent with the article.

You might infer that the only date cited in the title applies to both the settlement and the Greek structure but that is not a valid English grammatically enforced conclusion. Instead, why not look at the rest of the title? Note it is clearly written as a second language (or the writer might simply have a scatter gun approach to caps and dashes) and then go with the flow.

Please reserve judgement until you have read the article and digested it properly and please bear in mind that having to popularise your work in a foreign language is probably a right old pain that these archaeologists have simply just had to get to grips with as a fact of life in a world where the language of the Francs is English!

I think you must have written your comment right after Dang changed the title, and so were not aware of this change, nor the original title here on HN (~"3500-year-old Greek structure found in Croatia"). It doesn't make sense otherwise TBH.

Ok, we've taken 3500 years out of the title above.

I was reading somewhere, probably here or reddit, that the concept of 'ancient Greeks' is mostly made up with things attributed to them really having been done by the previous people who populated the region.

Doesn’t surprise me - Croatia is full of surprises like this. For example (though not quite as impressive), there’s a 9th century church in Zadar called The Church of St. Donatus that was built on ancient Roman ruins. I attended a concert there and it was astonishingly beautiful to see and to hear.

Yeah, tons of Roman stuff in Croatia. Here is the Told In Stone channel:

The Roman amphitheater of Pula, Croatia, likewise, frequently hosts concerts.

https://youtu.be/j-IjKXTvEOM?t=66

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalmatia_(Roman_province)

"ancient Roman ruins" You might find that the Roman presence was built upon an even earlier site. That happens very often - the Romans were very good at colonizing, whilst fitting in. They would often embrace the local religions and simply add them to their pantheon.

I've just read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_St._Donatus and there are no notes about pre-Roman ie iron age archaeology.

The church looks stunning and the acoustics will probably be amazing.

Croatia was the Dalmatia province of the Roman Empire as well.

It is fascinating that Italy and Croatia have more in common than a nearby Italian neighbor with a shared common language and a long border, such as Switzerland.

Croatia was under Venice Republic ruling afterwards, for a couple centuries, so naturally they end up having more things in common, including the gastronomy around Croatian coastline.

Additionally, Italy shares two languages with Switzerland, given the mountain area shared between Switzerland, Austria and Italy, where German is also an official language.

In my hometown in Istria you can find the lion of Venice on many buildings. And pretty much everyone to this day will rather speak in the Venetian dialect, than Croatian.

The sea was a highway rather than a barrier. Communities along the coast would be in intense contact.

It was the mountains that rise beyond the coast that were the real obstacle. Even in the 21st century, it takes a lot of money and upkeep to make them passable for modern transport.

The projected Beograd-Bar highway slightly south of Croatia is basically a white elephant project.

2000-3500=1500BCE which would be the era of Mycenaean Greece in Greece. AFAIK, it would be an earth shattering find if you found a Greek artifact in Croatia, eg something with Linear-A lettering.

Wouldn't it be more surprising if no remains of Greek presence were found anywhere in the Mediterranean?

Greek? I think they mean Mycenaean.

Americans? I think they mean Texans.

Hm, it is a bit like calling Leif Ericsson an American. Somewhat truish, but the time gap between him and the actual early US is really huge, approximately as big as the gap between the Mycenaean Bronze Age and Early Classical Greece. Lots of development in between.

Mycenaean's were Greek. Same as the Macedonians, the Athenians, the Spartans, the Corinthians, etc.

If they were digging like that next to my house, I would not be happy.

I'd rather them be digging up ancient artifacts quietly, than the planned loud construction that was going to be going on instead

The first metro line in Thessaloniki, Greece, planned to open next month, started construction 20 years ago. It took so long because (among other things) they kept bumping onto archeological sites. They have uncovered 130000 archeological finds so far.

With probably zero machinery? Even if you wouldn't be interested to watch or chat, as possible uncontrollable neighbourhood events go, I think an archaeological dig is pretty tame and manageable.

The digging is not a problem, lack of support for the neighbors foundations is. This is one strong rainfall away from destroyed ancient site and homeless folks.

I'd probably volunteer to haul dirt away and then start digging in my own yard.

The issue for landowners is that digging pretty much automatically means you can’t actually do anything you might otherwise want to do with your land for potentially decades.

If you’re an archaeologist? Cool. If you wanted a patio? Tough luck.

The ultimate nimby

Yea, that's quite a deep pit for no support on the sides. Definitely unsafe and against regulations in Croatia.

Walk Distance Athens to Stobreč is 20-30 days. They couldn't walk? They had borders lines and they couldn't dare pass them? Yes Greeks just appear from nowhere 3k years before with a full a develop language better than this thing i am writing, math , medicine etc..

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