Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 July 25

= July 25 =

What did the Ancient Greeks and Romans look like?
Were they dark-skinned like modern day Mediterranean people, or were they Nordic looking? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.116.7.25 (talk • contribs)


 * This sort of question is generally the field of archaeogenetics which attempts to extrapolate population migrations of people based on their genetic relationships. For one example, this article discusses the archaeogenetics of Greeks from the Peloponnese and the genetic relationship between those peoples and the Early Slavs.  It is important to note, however, that genetics is not culture; even though (for example) the Peleponnesian Greeks may have a strong genetic link to the early Slavic peoples, that doesn't mean, for example, that the Greek language is all that closely related to the Slavic languages group.  Culture and genetics is often tenuously related.  -- Jayron 32 18:54, 25 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Have a look at Roman art or Ancient Greek art and judge for yourself. Dmcq (talk) 11:32, 26 July 2017 (UTC)




 * Art can be difficult, because different artistic traditions can be highly stylized. For example, many Greek images show people with black (not just dark brown, but jet black) skin.  That doesn't mean anyone seriously considers that those people really had black colored skin.  Art is not a reliable indicator of phylogenetics or anything. -- Jayron 32 11:39, 26 July 2017 (UTC)


 * By way of references, see Italians and Race  and Italians, Etruscans and Greeks: Genetics and Ethnicity, both by Dr. Orville Boyd Jenkins. Also The Myth of Greek Ethnic 'Purity' by John Shea. Alansplodge (talk) 16:42, 26 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Black-figure pottery? Pottery is difficult to color properly anyway with firing and that is obviously a style rather than anything supposed to be accurate. Dmcq (talk) 17:43, 26 July 2017 (UTC)


 * In the amphora example shown, there's only 2 colors used, so with such a limited color palette you wouldn't expect accurate representations of skin color. However, there is much surviving Greek and Roman art which used a full color palette.  Statues tended to lose their original paint by now, and surviving paintings from that period tend to be in poor condition, so you might look at Roman mosaics, which tend to retain their colors better.  This one in particular shows a range of skin colors, from olive (the man near the center) to quite light (the reclining woman).  However, I certainly wouldn't call them "Nordic looking", based on their hair.  StuRat (talk) 18:22, 26 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Also bear in mind that how dark somoene will be will depend on how much sun exposure you get, which in turn depends on class, employment, etc. If you're rich enough that you can spend most of your time relaxing in doors, and have servants or slaves to carry a parasol over you when you go out, you will be a lot paler than someone who spends all their time working in the fields. Iapetus (talk) 13:57, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
 * That's only broadly true of people who already have a pale complexion. Aboriginal Australians or Yoruba person is unlikely to be very pale regardless of how much time they spend in doors.  -- Jayron 32 14:05, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

The burden of proof is really on those who think that ancient Romans and Greeks looked significantly different from modern Italians and Greeks to provide evidence for such an assertion. I seem to remember once seeing a map of blood type B with a local peak at Rome, indicating ancient immigration to the city, but our image File:Map of blood group b.gif doesn't seem to have enough resolution to include this... AnonMoos (talk) 15:04, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I'm not aware of any large-scale population migrations which would have displaced Romans and Ancient Greeks and replaced them with a different population of modern Italians and Greeks.  Even situations like the Lombard invasion of Italy and the Norman conquest of southern Italy had little effect on the local populations; the control was restricted to the power structure.  The local peoples had new rulers, but continued to live as they had, and were not displaced.  The same is true of Greece under the period of Turkish control (see Ottoman Greece).  -- Jayron 32 15:17, 27 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Genetic differences between humans are few, and inside a so much traveled region as Europe (+ north africa and middle east), they are even fewer.
 * Modern day Berbers, with a complicated history by still simpler than Italians, are an example of this, some of them looking like you would expect for Mediterranean people (dark haired, brown skinned even with light sun), other like nordic people (blonde, pale skin). Kabyle people states that "a large segment of the Kabyle are not native to North Africa".
 * You can bet this is even more true for italians, since Rome has been at time THE city where people from all over the western world gathered
 * Gem fr (talk) 16:45, 27 July 2017 (UTC)


 * It also depends of the era. The Romans imported slaves from their campaigns so probably in Rome itself, you could see more variance than in say a rural town. Besides, foederati and legionaries from one part of the empire could end at the opposite part of the empire. --Error (talk) 17:18, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
 * It'd be true for other urban centers as well. Remember that Rome itself became less important to governing the empire as time went on; by the fourth century, Constantinople had become the preeminent city in the empire, and the Western capital itself moved first to Mediolanum (Milan) in the fourth century (Milan is 'still' the largest city in Italy and it's economic engine) and Ravenna became the Western capital in the fifth century, with a similar rise in fortunes.  Rome itself probably remained a large city until the fifth century, but after Germanic invasions of the late fifth century, it collapsed, becoming a ghost town by the middle of the 6th century.  Cities have always been cosmopolitan centers with a wide variety of ethnicities intermingling.  That's what cities are.  -- Jayron 32 12:07, 28 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Rome, last paragraph, says population fell to 30,000. Not what I would call a ghost town. StuRat (talk) 17:16, 28 July 2017 (UTC)


 * During its imperial heyday, Rome had a population much larger than the typical ancient city, which was fed by regular grain imports from "Africa" (i.e. today's northern Tunisia and northeastern Algeria) and Egypt. When the grain imports were cut off, the population underwent a steep decline... AnonMoos (talk) 02:18, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
 * "Non Angli, sed Angeli" is of relevance - Gregory the Great's version of "Black is beautiful", but for slaves from Britain. Wnt (talk) 00:20, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

How big was the Minotaur labyrinth?
Do any versions of the myth say anything? Whether acreage, width, length of hallways, "how long to walk everywhere if the Minotaur wasn't there".. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:11, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * What do you think anyone thrown in there was most busy with? Exploring the maze to make a map or statistic incase someone would ask for the way or how far to the end of it? Did you read the part about the vicious flesh eating giant beast? --Kharon (talk) 01:18, 26 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Well, it had to be built before the Minotaur was put there. So at least one person (Daedalus) would have had an idea of the labyrinth's dimensions. I found nothing in the writings I scanned, nothing more specific than "a habitation of many divisions, and an abode full of mazes" or "Dædalus fills innumerable paths with windings; and scarcely can he himself return to the entrance, so great are the intricacies of the place." in the Metamorphoses (Riley's translation). Besides the two articles I linked, Labyrinth has a bit more on speculations on what and where the famous labyrinth might have been or if it even existed at all outside fiction. ---Sluzzelin talk  01:33, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * In the mythological tale, is the labyrinth built for the minotaur, or was it just a handy labyrinth they had around already? Why build it?  Or if not, where did they keep the mino-calf in the meantime? Andy Dingley (talk) 10:41, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Minotaur answer your questions: it was built on purpose, under advice from Delphi oracle, before it was really a problem Gem fr (talk) 15:00, 27 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Long enough for a ball of yarn to reach the center (not this one). Enough for a rough estimate of its radius. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:50, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * very clever answer :-) Gem fr (talk) 15:00, 27 July 2017 (UTC)