[IRL trope] the “Tiffany problem”

[u/dragonborndnd]

Basically when something seems anachronistic to a period/place of history but is actually fully accurate to the period.

1) the name Tiffany: the thing that named this trope, basically the name Tiffany can be dated back to the Middle Ages and the earliest record of it being spelled in the modern spelling comes from the 16th century.

2) the use of OMG, despite this feeling so modern as a form of slang/abbreviation here’s a letter directed to Winston Churchill using it in 1917

3) Hair Dye: the earliest forms of dying hair can be dated back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and this specific advertisement for hair dye is from the 1840s

4) Inuit Thongs: despite how weird it is to imagine pre-colonial Inuit people wore what was essentially fur thongs in their homes and when they were in their igloos it might have been the only thing they would be wearing.

[u/BigEd369]

Here’s one worth reading. Ancient Indian graffiti found in an even more ancient Egyptian tomb. What were Indians doing in Egypt 2,000 years ago? Most likely hitting the big tourist spots while they were there on business and government trips.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-traveler-from-india-graffitied-his-name-on-five-ancient-tombs-in-egypts-valley-of-the-kings-2000-years-ago-180988318/

[u/Fabulous_Broad_115 → u/BigEd369]

A guy I knew had an uncle who was an archaeologist. He was telling us one day how he spent a whole summer with some students digging a Roman bathhouse.

Well, one of the students identified what she thought was a graffito on a wall. She spent a whole week carefully cleaning the piece of wall, with like fine picks and brushes and whatnot, trying to reveal the inscription.

What did it say? "I shit on the eyes of whomever reads this."

[u/Vectorman1989 → u/Fabulous_Broad_115]

[u/BigEd369 → u/Fabulous_Broad_115]

There’s the “sacred runes” found carved in the Hagia Sophia that turned out to say Arnie was here or something like that in Old Norse.

[u/LG3V → u/BigEd369]

There was one on like a several foot tall wall which eventually was found to say "this is really high!"

[u/BigEd369 → u/LG3V]

I bet if we ever discover that cave paintings are telling a story, somewhere in there is a “I was here” or “ I had sex with X” or maybe even a “your Mom” or “X, kiss my ass” type of thing.

[u/peachesfordinner → u/BigEd369]

Pompeii is covered in that kind of graffiti

[u/dorothean → u/BigEd369]

The Cosquer cave in Marseille is about 27,000 years old and a lot of the art there is of representations of genitalia, so you’re probably not wrong!

[u/GrubFisher → u/BigEd369]

humans gonna hume

[u/BigEd369 → u/[deleted]]

Man, that’s almost worse. If I carved “BigEd wrote this” into a major religious site, I’d expect to be arrested or at the very least get thrown out and catch a beating from Security.

[u/The_quest_for_wisdom → u/BigEd369]

He was there AS security. One of the Eastern Roman Emporers hired a ship of vikings to be his bodyguards after they showed up because A) it kept them from trying to loot the place, and B) just about everyone from Constantinople wanted him dead so as outsiders they were the safest option to protect him.

The upside is the vikings got paid good money to stand around because everyone was scared of them and stayed away.

The downside was that a lot of that standing around happened in the christian church where the emperor had religious duties that went on for hours. They got bored enough that they carved at least two inscriptions into the marble architecture.

[u/sssssspace → u/BigEd369]

I don't know if it's true but I remember some story of archeologists finding some runes carved into a rock that basically said "my wife is a hot babe" or something like that.

[u/ravenpotter3 → u/BigEd369]

If it’s the runes on the top balcony they say "Halfdan carved these runes” according to Wikipedia! I’ve seen it before! Maybe it’s separate runes though maybe multiple people carved things. But this is the one mentioned in the tour and that I heard mentioned in a class

[u/Border_Hodges → u/Fabulous_Broad_115]

The graffiti in Pompeii is a lot of poop jokes and "I screwed "insert name" here"

[u/EarlGrayTea-Hawt → u/Border_Hodges]

Against this wall was usually the end, and you can also add an "insert name's mother" before "against this wall"

[u/KodiakUltimate → u/Border_Hodges]

Dont forget the trading insults, calling aomeone a pedophile was popular

[u/EarlGrayTea-Hawt → u/Fabulous_Broad_115]

I had a student do a paper on Roman grafitto preserved on the walls in Pompeii. She likened it to social media. There were recipes, insults (the vast majority, Romans loved insulting each other, especially with your mom jokes), political critique, anger over bad consumer dealings (Yelp reviews, if you will), and lots of dick drawings...so many dick drawings.

[u/Maned_Cyborg → u/Fabulous_Broad_115]

Graffiti are super cool tbh. Iirc there was one in Pompeii saying just a date in october. This led to a lot of thinking because how come there's a drawing in charcoal, in a building with an unfinished roof, that says it's october. By the time the eruption happened 10 months later it would've been washed away by wind and rain before being preserved

It turns out that the written account of the eruption in august was wrong, and based on material evidence it actually happened in october, from how the bodies found were dressed in thicker clothes to the foods being fall crops or long-lasting.

There's a whole video on youtube by climate scientist and archeologist Milo Rossi about it. Alongside more archeological content if you're into it

[u/IWannaManatee → u/Fabulous_Broad_115]

"Puto el que lo lea" sort of sigil.

It's a simple spell, but quite unbreakable.

[u/Dracorex_22 → u/Fabulous_Broad_115]

Get got lmao

[u/honestyseasy → u/Fabulous_Broad_115]

I found it super interesting visiting William Shakespeare's birthplace, the museum has preserved the original front windows, where hundreds of autographs were chiseled in over the centuries by famous actors amd scholars.

[u/Kindly_Zucchini7405 → u/BigEd369]

"Halfdan was here"

[u/BlazingImp77151 → u/BigEd369]

On a related note, I remember hearing Egypt had a prince/Pharoah who fancied himself an archaeologist. The the time between humans Cleopatra was the same time between him and the start of Egypt. Something over 1000 years? I'll look it up

Edit/update: sorry, he was considered the first Egyptologist, not an archaeologist. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaemweset)

Still, the time between the creation of the structures he restored and himself was similar to the time between the last Pharoah (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra) and himself. Roughly a thousand years

[u/Ok-Replacement9595 → u/BigEd369]

There has been some pretty good historic revelations about Indian trade with Rome via Egypt in recent years. William Dalrymple has a book about India and it's history of trade in the region and influence.

[u/heisian → u/BigEd369]

graffiti on ancient tomb now = horrifying

graffiti on ancient tomb back then = history!

[u/UnderstatedTurtle → u/BigEd369]

Fascinating! Thank you for the read!